Annual Report - Winthrop University Hospital

Winthrop-University Hospital 2011 Annual ReportMaureen Gaffney, MHS, RPAC, RN, Winthrop’s Senior Vice President for Patient Care Services and Chief Medical Information Officer, combines her clinicalexperience and technological savvy to foster the best possible environment for healing.bracelet at the bedside, nurses have a reliable mechanismby which they confirm correct patient, correct medication,correct dose and correct time. If there is any contraindicationor discrepancy, the system alerts the provider, thereby avertingpotential medication errors.Winthrop last year installed a cloud-based picture archivalsystem in the Imaging Services department. Radiology imagesare stored remotely but can be accessed easily throughout theWinthrop system. Not only does this facilitate sharing of crucialinformation among the health professionals treating a patient,but also it safeguards the ability to access images should therebe an unexpected system interruption on site.Last year, we also began a patient consent initiative to ensurethat patients can control access to their electronic health record.The portability of health records will result in better patientcare and reduced costs because health professionals treating apatient outside of his or her physician practice or hospital willhave access to the patient’s critical health information.Health IT trailblazers—on Long Island and beyondAs an early adopter of health IT, Winthrop has been able tocapitalize on its relationships and experiences to help developthe next generation of these tools. We collaborate with industryand academia and currently we are piloting a scheduling systemthat will reduce patient wait times for certain tests andprocedures. We are also helping to develop a touch screendevice-based bedside system to facilitate communicationbetween patients and nurses.Winthrop-University Hospital is a founding member of theE-Health Network of Long Island, the regional health informationorganization working toward interconnectivity withhealthcare providers in other parts of the state—and ultimatelynationwide—through compatible health information exchangesystems.31