KishHealth System Implements Pharmacy Xpert from Thomson Reuters to Capture Interventions and Improve Patient Care

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Jan 30, 2012, 09:49 ET

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- KishHealth System in DeKalb, IL, has implemented the Pharmacy Xpert clinical surveillance and intervention solution from Thomson Reuters to proactively capture interventions, manage medication therapy and enhance pharmacist efficiency across KishHealth facilities.

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"We anticipate capturing interventions that we might have overlooked previously by using the proactive alerts that Pharmacy Xpert offers. We see this as an opportunity to intercede earlier for patients who are at risk for adverse events, which we believe will result in increased patient safety as well as cost savings," said Chet Simmons, PharmD, RPh, for at KishHealth System.

"Our pharmacists found the clinical dashboard to be a valuable, time saving tool when reviewing patient data. Pharmacy Xpert eliminates manual searching through multiple sources and helps streamline our processes by presenting a holistic daily snapshot, specifically designed with the critical data pharmacists, to make immediate decisions," Simmons added.

Pharmacy Xpert — part of the Clinical Xpert™ Suite of workflow solutions — is a clinical intelligence dashboard that aids hospital pharmacists in eliminating medication errors, reducing complications and decreasing length of stay by presenting intervention opportunities for intravenous (IV) drugs, and providing medication decision support for off-label use to improve efficiency and patient outcomes. Based on criteria outlined in a clinical profile, Pharmacy Xpert continuously monitors patient specific data from multiple sources, including medication lists and dosages, lab results, vital signs, transcribed reports, intake and output (I&O), demographics and more. The data is then delivered to pharmacists on a single screen – so all critical patient information is at their fingertips.

"Pharmacy Xpert allows us to build customized patient profiles based on specific populations and hospital quality and safety criteria. We are building profiles and criteria for alerts that we believe will lead to improved effectiveness, efficiency and better patient outcomes. We are looking forward to incorporating Infection Xpert into our system leveraging the same platform, which will allow us to proactively capture alerts and escalations of both drug dosing and those at risk for infection," Simmons said.

In addition to the option of customized profiles built to specific patient populations and criteria, Pharmacy Xpert includes prebuilt clinical profiles developed by the experienced clinicians and healthcare professionals that deliver the drug, disease, and toxicology content in the industry-leading Micromedex® evidence-based clinical decision support solution. These prebuilt profiles cover antimicrobial, anticoagulation and glycemic monitoring, IV to oral (PO) conversions, narrow therapeutic indexing, patient safety, and target medications and can be customized and adapted to a hospital's environment.

Pharmacy Xpert taps into KishHealth's Meditech hospital information system (HIS), aggregates clinical data from patient admissions, laboratory results, pharmacy orders, vitals and various transcribed reporting systems and delivers it to the pharmacists on a single screen – so all critical patient information is available in a single view. It provides the comprehensive, intelligent evidence that pharmacists need to operate more efficiently.

Pharmacy Xpert can be quickly integrated within any hospital IT environment — including hospitals using Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems from Cerner, Eclipsys, Epic, GE, Meditech, McKesson and Siemens.

For more information visit www.clinicalxpert.com/pharmacy.

About KishHealthSystem
KishHealth System, based in DeKalb, IL, provides services to the greater DeKalb County area, located about 60 miles west of Chicago. The system is comprised of two non-profit community hospitals accredited by The Joint Commission, and several other non-profit healthcare providers. The 94-bed Kishwaukee Community Hospital is located in DeKalb. The 25-bed Valley West Community Hospital is located in Sandwich. With nearly 1,400 employees, KishHealth System is the area's second largest employer behind Northern Illinois University. For more information go to www.kishhealth.org.

About Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 55,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

SOURCE Thomson Reuters