Armonk, NY and Boston, MA, July 21, 2003
IBM and PatientKeeper, Inc. today announced a significant expansion
of wireless capabilities to help hospitals enhance patient care,
reduce medical errors, and increase the job satisfaction of physicians,
nurses, and other healthcare professionals.
As part of their collaborative efforts, IBM will market and
resell PatientKeeper's mobile platform and broad portfolio of
wireless, point-of-care solutions. Those solutions enable a physician
to view the patient's electronic medical record, use powerful
clinical decision support tools, accurately record charges for
medical treatments, and more -- all with one handheld device while
at the patient's bedside.
The expanded collaboration is key to IBM's new Wireless and
Mobility Solutions (WAMS) for healthcare professionals and builds
upon a relationship with PatientKeeper initiated in May 2001.
IBM's WAMS portfolio offers healthcare providers a comprehensive
wireless solution that includes hardware, design, and implementation,
installation and testing, LAN hosting services, and more. IBM
can integrate PatientKeeper solutions with existing hospital information
systems and support dozens of different network technologies and
wireless standards protocols used worldwide.
"PatientKeeper's vision, track record, and commitment to
an open mobile platform for healthcare makes for a perfect fit
for IBM in our efforts to transform the nation's healthcare industry,"
said Russ Ricci, MD and general manager, IBM Global Healthcare
Industry. "PatientKeeper strengthens our WAMS portfolio and
will allow hospitals, doctors, and patients to enjoy real benefits
from wireless and mobile technologies."
As an example, PatientKeeper's Charge Capture Application Suite
automates a billing process that in a typical hospital relies
on scattered 3x5 note cards, encounter forms, scraps of paper,
and human memory. PatientKeeper's mobile alternative will reduce
physician and patient frustration due to lost charges, delays,
inaccurate bills, data entry errors, denial of claims, and others
problem associated with a traditionally manual, paper-based process.
The PatientKeeper mobile platform solution runs on WebSphere,*
IBM's family of standards-based infrastructure software that helps
customers take applications essential to running their business
and extends them via the Web to customers, suppliers, partners
and employees.
Studies by the Institute of Medicine have shown that automating
paper-based processes, adopting electronic patient medical records
and empowering clinicians with wireless technology, can play a
significant role in increasing patient safety and the efficiency
and job satisfaction of healthcare professionals. Information
technology is also considered crucial in helping hold the line
on the nation's escalating healthcare costs that now stand at
more than $1.4 trillion per year.
"In the near future, a physician will no longer consider
seeing patients without a handheld device (PDA) any more than
seeing them without a stethoscope," said Dr. Joseph Pisegna,
Associate Professor UCLA and Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
of the VA (Los Angeles). "Mobile computing will take the
guess-work out of medicine, reduce errors, and enable the physician
to spend more time interacting with the patient. The collaboration
of IBM and PatientKeeper supports the acceleration of mobile computing
in creating a standard of care that improves patient safety, saves
lives, and improves the work life for physicians, nurses, and
other health professionals."
The PatientKeeper Clinical Application Suite gives physicians
immediate access to the information needed to evaluate a patient's
condition and make informed decisions. The software enables clinicians
to see lab results, clinical notes, patient vital statistics,
input/output data and alerts along with medication lists, allergies,
and clinical reference information.
In addition to PatientKeeper's clinical solutions, IBM's WAMS
will show how the Charge Capture Application Suite can deliver
a strong enough return on investment to help finance a hospital's
entire wireless infrastructure. Hospitals using the PatientKeeper
application have seen significant return on investment benefits
-- in some instances reaching more than 400 percent over the cost
of the software in the first year alone.
"The combination of IBM wireless infrastructure and PatientKeeper
mobile solutions offers tremendous synergy for hospitals and healthcare,"
said Eugene Signorini, senior analyst at The Yankee Group. "By
incorporating PatientKeeper's best-of-breed charge capture application,
IBM is providing hospitals with an immediate return that can help
offset their capital investment."
"PatientKeeper is extremely proud of its long relationship
with IBM," said Paul W. Brient, president and CEO of PatientKeeper.
"IBM's strength and reputation enables us to greatly extend
our market reach. Together, we plan to bring a completely new
level of mobile productivity, user satisfaction, and patient safety
to doctors and hospitals."
A survey by the Medical Records Institute, a group that promotes
electronic healthcare technology revealed that more than three-quarters
of respondents said improving workflow, billing, and patient safety
are key motivations for adopting electronic patient health records.
About IBM Healthcare
IBM is helping transform the healthcare, life sciences and pharmaceutical
industries. IBM offers industry-specific research, consulting,
hardware, middleware, integration and implementation services.
More than 15,000 IBM professionals serve health-related customers
in more than 160 countries. IBM capabilities include research
expertise, high performance computing, modeling and data management
for genomic studies, the search for new drugs and other life science
efforts. Solutions from IBM help healthcare providers and payers
increase patient care and safety, reduce medical errors and reduce
costs by creating a faster, more efficient Web-based infrastructure.
Other key services offered to healthcare customers include business
process implementation, systems outsourcing, Web hosting, technology
design, and training. To learn more about IBM please visit www.ibm.com
About PatientKeeper
PatientKeeper, Inc. provides doctors, nurses, and other healthcare
professionals with mobile computing solutions to improve patient
care and curb rising costs. The PatientKeeper Platform easily
integrates with existing hospital IT systems and securely delivers
patient information to handheld PDAs. PatientKeeper offers a portfolio
of wireless applications for such healthcare tasks as pre-planning
for daily rounds, timely delivery of clinical results, and charge
capture at the point-of-care. PatientKeeper is the wireless provider
for Cerner, and Thomson/ MICROMEDEX, and a number of leading healthcare
institutions have standardized on the PatientKeeper Platform.
For more information, visit www.patientkeeper.com