Siemens helps Virginia Hospital Center

Advanced Information Technologies to Help Improve Healthcare Workflow and Enhance Patient Safety Initiatives

Virginia Hospital Center joins a growing number of medical facilities utilizing advanced information technologies (IT) to create efficiencies and orchestrate clinical best practices by signing an agreement with Siemens Medical Solutions to implement its workflow-engineered health information solution, Soarian.

The implementation of Soarian places Virginia Hospital Center at the forefront of the national movement toward utilizing advanced IT to build a nationwide health information infrastructure and supports its effort to receive Magnet Hospital designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Soarian's unique workflow management tools will enable Virginia Hospital Center to re-engineer processes throughout the entire healthcare continuum to help drive organizational efficiencies, address patient safety initiatives and enhance clinical decision-making. By managing and synchronizing information across the entire enterprise, Soarian not only coordinates the complex processes of healthcare, it anticipates them by intuitively delivering information when and where it's needed most.

"Virginia Hospital Center is excited about our partnership with Siemens and the implementation of this new, market-leading platform that will improve patient safety and process efficiency. This advanced hospital information system will have far-reaching benefits for our patients, physicians and hospital staff," said David Crutchfield, chief information officer, Virginia Hospital Center. "This system is a perfect match to the sophisticated medical expertise currently in place at Virginia Hospital Center."

The 334-bed private teaching and research hospital will deploy Soarian's clinical, financial, scheduling, portal and health information management (HIM) applications, as well as a number of ancillary applications that support the hospital's efforts to ensure patient safety and a positive patient experience at every touchpoint with the hospital. Siemens Med Administration CheckTM, which utilizes point-of-care barcode technology to seamlessly validate and document the medication administration process, will alert Virginia Hospital Center nurses immediately to allergic and drug interactions and potential errors. Additionally, Soarian Community Access will enable connectivity between physicians, hospital staff and patients through a secure Web-based application and messaging system.

Virginia Hospital Center will also implement Siemens Pharmacy, Enterprise Document Management, Siemens OPENLinkTM, as well as clinical specialty modules that include Soarian Cardiology and Soarian Critical Care.

"We look forward to bringing Soarian to Virginia Hospital Center to help optimize the complex processes of healthcare to improve the experience of both the medical team and patients," said Janet Dillione, president, Healthcare IT Division, Siemens Medical Solutions. "We will work closely with Virginia Hospital Center to make vital information accessible any time, anywhere, to help expedite care delivery, improve patient safety, and remove administrative burdens from physicians and other decision-makers."

To help Virginia Hospital Center maximize its technology investment, Siemens will provide end-user education to improve the skills, knowledge, and productivity of hospital staff, while providing tools to navigate government regulations, evolving technology, and advancements in healthcare processes.

Soarian combines clinical, financial and administrative processes to support patient-centered care. The solution is distinguished by three innovative characteristics: it manages processes and best practices across the enterprise through workflow management tools; it enables improved ease of use and faster training via a smart user interface; and its integrated embedded analytics help to manage and measure the events and activities of the organization. Additionally, by streamlining access to images and data from a variety of medical modalities in one location, Soarian helps facilitate more informed decision-making - leading to improved care delivery, increased staff satisfaction, and more efficient business practices - Siemens.