TheraDoc(R) Patented Technology to Aid Veterans Hospitals in Tracking and Reducing MRSA Infections.

Houston's Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Selects TheraDoc Solutions

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Administration Medical Center (MEDVAMC) in Houston, TX has joined a growing number of Veterans Hospitals selecting and implementing real-time electronic surveillance and expert clinical decision support systems from TheraDoc([R]), a clinical informatics company headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT. MEDVAMC, the primary healthcare provider for more than 116,000 veterans in southeast Texas, will implement TheraDoc's best-in-class infection control and antimicrobial management solutions to enhance patient safety and care.

TheraDoc president and CEO, Stan Pestotnik, credits the company's ability to support the VA's national initiative on MRSA prevention, "Getting To Zero," along with its capacity to help reduce infections and inappropriate antibiotic usage, as the basis for the VA's selection.

"MEDVAMC provides exceptional healthcare to our deserving veterans and we are honored to collaborate with them in providing state-of-the-art technology that will further enhance the quality and safety of our veterans' care," said Pestotnik. "TheraDoc's integration with the VA's VistA([R])/CPRS system enables real-time focused access to patient data and knowledge that supports enhanced clinical decision making. With the MRSA initiative and the continued push within the VA to reduce infections and improve antimicrobial management, TheraDoc is uniquely positioned to make a difference."

MEDVAMC is part of a select group of VA Hospitals that is actively studying the impact of and educating others about the MRSA Screening protocol issued early this year by the VA Central Office. VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System where the protocol and initiative originated and VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, both TheraDoc clients, are also contributing significantly to this national effort to reduce MRSA infections. The Atlanta VA Medical Center and VA Salt Lake City Health Care System also number among the VA Hospitals utilizing TheraDoc solutions to enhance patient safety and care measures.

To enhance its patient safety initiatives, MEDVAMC will implement TheraDoc's patented Expert System Platform([R]) and two of its knowledge modules, the Infection Control Assistant([R]) and Antibiotic Assistant([R]).

The Infection Control Assistant helps infection control practitioners (ICPs) to clinically identify, confirm and document infections. It also reduces the time it takes to identify patient-specific needs and create accurate internal and external reports. As workflow efficiency and information access are improved, ICPs can spend more time educating others and making patient interventions, which will help prevent and mitigate infections.

The Antibiotic Assistant helps optimize the utilization of antimicrobials by monitoring patient-specific pharmacy information in conjunction with lab and microbiology results for drug/bug mismatches, renal dosing, IV to PO switch candidates and targeted drugs. Intelligent alerts will quickly notify designated clinicians as soon as this information is available. Using the hospital's formulary and TheraDoc-generated antibiograms, the Antibiotic Assistant's unique Wizard will deliver evidence-based treatment recommendations for a wide range of syndromes to requesting clinicians.

These technologies are configured to provide MEDVAMC, and other VA Hospitals, with multiple infection prevention and control and antimicrobial management capabilities. Important among these are the identification of screening vs regular MRSA cultures; re-admission alerting for multi-drug resistant organisms (MDRO), including MRSA; alerts for admissions without a screening culture; alerts for MRSA and other MDRO infections; antimicrobial optimization for MRSA and MDROs; transmission tracking tools and reporting capabilities; and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) definitions for identification, documentation and reporting (National Health Safety Network (NHSN) benchmarking and reporting).

Notably, TheraDoc technology brings relevant information into a single view, reducing the time it takes to access and utilize data, enabling better decision making, and saving clinicians' valuable time.

Additional system components offered by TheraDoc include the ADE Assistant([R]), which monitors for adverse drug events and identifies intervention opportunities, and the Clinical Alerts Assistant[TM], an intelligent alerting system that delivers critical clinical data to clinicians in real time.

TheraDoc is dedicated to helping VA Hospitals reach their patient care goals and continues to design and develop additional solutions to add to its real-time electronic surveillance and expert clinical decision support systems.

About TheraDoc, Inc.

TheraDoc is a clinical informatics company dedicated to improving the quality, efficiency and safety of patient care through enhanced clinical decision making. It provides innovative, best-in-class solutions that improve clinical and financial outcomes at a range of provider and payer organizations, including some of the most respected healthcare institutions in the country. With clinical transparency, TheraDoc's technologies seamlessly place mission-critical knowledge at the clinician's fingertips, helping them to confidently manage multiple processes of care across multiple conditions and diseases. The company's strict adherence to medical informatics standards enables connectivity and interoperability with any hospital's disparate health information systems.

Founded in 1999, TheraDoc designs, develops, and supports a suite of clinical decision support technologies, all of which utilize a proprietary inference engine that enables its real-time capabilities. TheraDoc's founders and core medical informatics team are internationally recognized for their pioneering work in medical expert systems. Their experience in clinical decision support design and development spans two decades.

On the Net: www.theradoc.com.