NHCC’S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT SUPPORTS ONE OF THE MOST TECHNICALLY ADVANCED HEALTH CARE FACILITIES IN NEW YORK
—-PACS, DOCUMENT IMAGING SCANNING, CPOE, WIRELESS MOBILE WORK STATIONS AND CONTINUOUS TRAINING ENSURE THAT NHCC IS CONSTANTLY GROWING AND ALWAYS ON THE EDGE OF HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY—
East Meadow, NY…….The Information Technology Department at the Nassau Health Care Corporation supports one of the most technically advanced health care facilities in New York. “There are many new and exciting projects on the agenda for the Information Technology Department at Nassau University Medical Center. We are constantly growing and always on the cutting edge of healthcare technology,” said Arthur A. Gianelli, president/CEO of the Nassau Health Care Corporation.
The Nassau University Medical Center implemented a Picture Archiving and Communication system (PACS) to replace hard-copy based means of managing medical images such as X-Ray film archives. Physicians and other caregivers can capture, retrieve, view and store various images from ultrasound to multi-slice CT, using a single, comprehensive solution that is available both in-house and remotely from the doctor’s home or office. Additionally, the Medical Center went live with a Document Imaging Scanning system that allows NUMC staff to view patient medical records electronically, drastically improving medical record storage and availability.
In 2005, NUMC commenced implementation of a Computerized Physician Order Entry system. CPOE is a process of electronic entry of physician orders for the treatment of patients under his or her care. These orders are communicated over a computer network to the medical staff (nurses, therapists or other physicians) or to the departments (pharmacy, laboratory or radiology) responsible for fulfilling the order. CPOE decreases delay in order completion, reduces errors related to handwriting or transcription, allows order entry at point-of-care or off-site, provides error-checking for duplicate or incorrect doses or tests, and simplifies inventory and posting of charges. “To date, NUMC has successfully implemented Physician Orders including all Labs, Radiology, Neurology, Dietary, Consults and Portions of Cardiology. This time next year, all remaining physician, nursing and medication orders will be completed, making the hospital a full CPOE facility,” stated Christine Forman, vice president for Information Technology.
To aid in the successful integration of these electronic clinical systems, the Information Technology department at NUMC provides a state-of-the-art training environment. We provide a full-time training staff and three full sized classrooms to support our comprehensive clinical systems curriculum. In addition, we maintain an extensive training intranet website including online training materials, reference tools and exams to facilitate continuing education for our medical professionals.
“To ensure we are providing highest performance to these crucial information systems, the Information Technology Department provides the best in network infrastructure and server/workstation hardware,” added Mr. Gianelli. The medical center currently maintains over 2000 computer workstations to provide high availability for our healthcare providers. To ensure mobility, the Information Technology department has distributed over 50 wireless mobile workstations to our patient floors, allowing physicians to access our clinical systems from a patient’s bedside over a secure wireless network. We also house a high-speed fiber optic network and over 120 high-powered servers to seamlessly handle the demand for information. To support this cutting-edge computer environment, we employ skilled professionals available 24/7 to provide support for our clinical systems.