Legacy Health System
About Legacy Health System
Legacy Health System is the largest not-for-profit healthcare system in Oregon with nearly 8,000 full and part-time employees. The hospital provides an integrated network of healthcare services, including acute and critical care, inpatient and outpatient treatment, and community health education.
Business Issues
• 2,500+ clinicians needing to access patient information residing in dozens of disparate clinical applications
• Significant time spent navigating applications to get complete view of patient’s medical record
• Applications working independently, each with its own login and password
Benefits Realized with Fusionfx
• Rapid access to patient data aggregated across applications
• Unified portal view of patient’s complete medical record
• Minimal clinical training
• Improved organizational ability to comply with strict HIPAA requirements
• Increased productivity
• For clinicians, less time spent on IT, more time spent with patients
• Improved clinical efficacy and patient safety
The Challenge
Providing clinicians with timely, secure access to patient data is one of the most pressing challenges in healthcare today. With more than 2,500 physicians on active medical staff, Legacy Health System needed simplified, remote access to the information residing in dozens of clinical applications. Because each application required a different login and password, clinicians faced a frustrating and time-consuming process each time they needed information on a patient¬¬––time that could better be spent providing patient care.
According to Pete Mardesich, manager clinical outreach systems with Legacy, “Not only did clinicians have to sign-in and out of different applications, they also had to select a patient’s name repeatedly [in each application they opened]. Because information lacked context, getting a clear picture was problematic, frustrating and inefficient. The amount of time wasted was enormous.”
The Solution
Legacy decided that a physician portal would give clinicians both secure access to and a consolidated view of patient information stored in multiple clinical applications. After evaluating solutions from various vendors, Legacy chose the Fusionfx solution from Carefx. After outlining the functionality expected from Legacy’s physician portal, Carefx and their partner Novell, which provides identity management and single sign-on technology, developed a detailed plan to meet the health system’s technology, business and financial objectives. Working with Carefx, Legacy was able to get a complete, integrated solution that met their need for both access management and aggregated patient data without the hassle of dealing with multiple vendors.
Together, Carefx and Novell, working closely with Legacy Health System’s team, quickly went to work and launched a pilot program in just four months. The joint solution delivers identity and access management with a global repository for user identity information that automatically synchronizes user data between Legacy's Windows NT* domain and eDirectory to maintain a single, accurate source of user data. In addition, the solution allows Legacy to comply with strict HIPAA requirements by delivering auditing functionality and ensuring that only authorized individuals can access patient information.
To date, Legacy has already integrated several applications, including IDX LastWord, Cerner Powerchart Office, Fuji PACS and the GE Muse Cardiology systems, into its portal. Fusionfx’s open and scalable architecture will make it easy and cost-effective to add new applications onto the system down the road as needed.
"The entire solution is designed in a way that allows us to expand as needed," said Mardesich. “I’m not aware of a comparable open and strategic platform.”
For clinicians, Legacy’s new portal provides fast access to an aggregated view of patient information, whether they’re working from their office or from home. Today, instead of needing to log into each application separately, find the right patient and view relevant information, when a clinician logs on to the portal and selects a patient, encounter or observation, Fusionfx automatically finds and links related patient information in all other applications. Clinicians can then simply toggle between applications, and be confident that they are viewing the correct patient record. Now, the process of getting a complete view into a patient’s medical record––critical to diagnosing and devising the best treatment plan––takes seconds instead of minutes. This is valuable time clinicians are now able to spend with patients instead of dealing with technology.
"We like it when our physicians are satisfied with the information infrastructure," said Mardesich. "They have difficult and stressful jobs, so anything that helps alleviate the bottlenecks is extraordinarily important and valuable."
While the initial goal of the portal was to provide clinicians with remote access to patient information, Legacy has found that clinicians use the technology just as much within the hospital as outside and are looking to create clinical access systems throughout the hospital to further streamline access to patient data.
About CareFX
Carefx supports healthcare organizations in achieving their vision of advancing the quality and safety of patient care delivery through its Fusionfx solution suite. Fusionfx streamlines and simplifies clinical and business workflow and connects care providers to the information they need, where and when they need it. Fusionfx delivers crucial patient information with speed, efficiency and logic by managing care transitions and information gaps between diverse departments, systems and facilities. Carefx supports more than 400 hospitals, health systems, regional health information organizations (RHIOs) and health information exchanges (HIEs) across North America and Europe.
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ, Carefx can be reached at (480) 833-5010 or by email at info@carefx.com. Visit www.carefx.com for more information.