Siemens Medical Solutions and the Touro Infirmary of New Orleans have signed a strategic agreement through which Siemens will provide the Touro Infirmary with a long-term information technology (IT) managed services solution. The solution includes the management of Touro's complete IT operations and the implementation of Siemens Med Administration Check solution.

"Expanding Touro's relationship with Siemens provides us with a roadmap for the future," said Leslie D. Hirsch, president and CEO, Touro Infirmary. "We are looking forward to turning our vision of becoming a high performance organization into a reality with a leading-edge IT solution that benefits our patients, physicians and employees."

By looking to Siemens for management of its IT operations, Touro benefits from Siemens' expertise in complex healthcare and IT infrastructures. Siemens will work with Touro to create operational and financial efficiencies, maximizing its investment in IT resources, and achieving its strategic business objectives. As a result of the expanded relationship, Touro and Siemens employees will work collaboratively to deliver advanced IT solutions designed to meet the organization's needs.

"Today, there is growing evidence of the positive impact IT has in helping to drive safe, high quality and efficient patient care across the healthcare continuum," said Janet Dillione, president, Health Services, the Healthcare IT Division of Siemens Medical Solutions. "We see tremendous potential to transform the entire healthcare industry through innovative solutions and strategic customer partnerships that enable healthcare providers to focus on the business of patient care.We look forward to expanding our long-standing partnership with Touro in support of their goals for enhanced patient safety and measurable operational improvements."

Touro has implemented a wide range of Siemens INVISION(R) applications throughout its health care enterprise, using INVISION to streamline information across clinical, financial, and administrative functions to help improve patient care and outcomes. Touro will also adopt Siemens Med Administration Check, designed by nurses and pharmacists to support and improve nursing medication administration workflow, with online, point-of-care information technology that helps reduce errors.

Med Administration Check closes the loop on the medication use process by automatically validating and documenting medication administration using bar code technology to help confirm the "six rights" of administration: right patient, right drug, right time, right dose, right route and right documentation. Medication administration details are captured in real-time at the point-of-care and automatically documented in the patient's electronic health record. Siemens Med Administration Check enables better clinical decision-making and more accurate patient billing. Clinical checks performed during administration help the care team ascertain allergic, drug-lab, or drug-drug interactions.

"Siemens Med Administration Check helps to improve patient safety by providing clinicians with quality tools that reduce the potential for human error," said Ralph Dean, senior vice president of administration at Touro. "Siemens products and services operate together to provide hospitals like ours with valuable tools to help improve quality, consistency, and achieve best practices on an organization-wide basis."

Additionally, Siemens provides Touro with leading-edge diagnostic imaging technologies including integrated solutions for interventional cardiology, nuclear medicine and echocardiography. Touro's long-standing relationship with Siemens includes the first installation of a biplane flat detector cardiac catheter imaging system. Touro recently installed syngo(R)Dynamics, a multi-modality, dynamic image review, Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS). syngoDynamics enables evidence-based reporting to help improve the efficiency of clinical procedures for cardiology, general imaging and OB/GYN. Additionally, the installation of a new cardiac catheter lab containing the AXIOM Artis cardiology imaging system and AXIOM Sensis for Hemodynamic monitoring is under way - Siemens.