CERNER CORPORATION Beacon Health System will begin using CommonWell Health Alliance(R) services to advance interoperability
KANSAS CITY, Mo. and SOUTH BEND, Ind., April 6, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beacon Health System announced today it signed up to use CommonWell Health Alliance® services to enable health care providers to see patient health data from outside organizations within its Cerner electronic health record (EHR). Patients who receive care at its facilities will be able to give their doctors and nurses access to medical records from outside health care organizations that participate in CommonWell.
"Safety is as the heart of delivering world-class health care," said Mark Warlick, Beacon Health System chief information officer. "CommonWell Health Alliance gives us access to the patient's complete record, no matter where care is delivered. Having access to this information can help care givers provide exceptional and safe care to their patients."
By offering CommonWell services to its patients, Beacon Health System is breaking through organizational and technological boundaries to advance interoperability and help patients give their care providers a more complete picture of their medical history.
"Beacon Health System is helping lead the charge for interoperability across health care," said Bob Robke, CommonWell treasurer and Cerner vice president of Network Services. "Our organizations share a common belief that every person's medical record should follow them, regardless of where they receive medical treatment or the type of EHR system that houses their records."
CommonWell was founded by a group of health care IT suppliers committed to advancing interoperability by allowing different systems to work together in order to share patient health data with their care providers. The services offered by CommonWell address four of the key challenges in health care interoperability:
- Patient identification and linking – Assist health IT suppliers to more quickly and accurately identify patients as they transition through care facilities
- Record locator and retrieval – Help providers locate and access their patient records, regardless of where the encounter occurred, by providing a "virtual table of contents" that documents available data from each encounter location
- Patient access, privacy and consent management – Expected future capabilities include a patient-authorized means to simplify management of data sharing consents and authorizations
- Trusted data access – Provide authentication and auditing services that facilitate secure data sharing among member systems
Interoperability in health care enables organizations to share patient information regardless of organizational, geographic or technological boundaries. When people can securely share important medical information with providers, they can help improve care quality by giving providers a more complete picture of their medical history.
About Beacon Health System
Beacon Health System is the nonprofit parent organization of Elkhart General Hospital and Memorial Hospital of South Bend, two medical legacies that have been providing world-class care throughout North Central Indiana and Southwestern Michigan for more than 100 years. As the largest, locally owned and operated health care system in the region, Beacon Health System is also a research and education organization, guiding clinical research trials for a variety of illnesses and helping train medical residents in the fields of family medicine and hospital pharmacy. The System is governed by volunteer representatives of the community and is guided by a mission to enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of the communities we serve. For more information, please visit www.BeaconHealthSystem.org.
About CommonWell Health Alliance
CommonWell Health Alliance is a not-for-profit trade association of health IT companies working together to create universal access to health care data. The Alliance is open to all organizations that are committed to making patient's data available to providers regardless of where care occurs. Alliance members support the belief that provider access to this data must be built into health information technologies at a reasonable cost for use by a broad range of health care providers and the populations and people they serve.
To learn more about CommonWell Health Alliance, please visit www.commonwellalliance.org, and read CommonWell Community blog. Also follow CommonWell on Twitter at @CommonWell, join us on CommonWell's LinkedIn page, and like CommonWell's Facebook page.
CommonWell Health Alliance and the CommonWell logo are licensed trademarks of CommonWell Health Alliance in the U.S. and other jurisdictions.
About Cerner
Cerner's health information technologies connect people, information and systems at more than 18,000 facilities worldwide. Recognized for innovation, Cerner solutions assist clinicians in making care decisions and enable organizations to manage the health of populations. The company also offers an integrated clinical and financial system to help health care organizations manage revenue, as well as a wide range of services to support clients' clinical, financial and operational needs. Cerner's mission is to contribute to the improvement of health care delivery and the health of communities. On February 2, 2015, Cerner Corporation acquired substantially all of the assets, and assumed certain liabilities, of the Siemens Health Services business from Siemens AG. (Nasdaq:CERN). For more information about Cerner, visit cerner.com, read our blog at cerner.com/blog, connect with us on Twitter at twitter.com/cerner and on Facebook at facebook.com/cerner.
Certain trademarks, service marks and logos set forth herein are property of Cerner Corporation and/or its subsidiaries. All other non-Cerner marks are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Media Contacts:
Cerner Corp.: Angela Vogen,
angela.vogen@cerner.com
Beacon Health System: Margaret Scroope,
mscroope@beaconhealthsystem.org
CommonWell Health Alliance: Berit Mansour,
Berit.Mansour@HKStrategies.com
