KANSAS CITY, Mo. and NEW YORK, Aug. 9, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cerner Corporation (Nasdaq:CERN) is working with Major League Soccer (MLS) to provide a comprehensive health management platform that will standardize care for players in the league. The secure electronic platform, called HealtheAthlete™, will improve the standard of medical record keeping for injured athletes, as well as ease communication between the athlete's key care providers.
MLS is the first professional sports organization to use the platform, which was implemented in 2010. During the 2010 season, 621 player records were tracked in the system, and almost 1,500 injuries were logged. This season, all 18 teams in MLS are using the platform to manage player health, which marks the first time in the league's 15-year history that all teams are on a single integrated health platform.
"Through our developing partnership with Cerner, we've learned that having one unified system for the entire league provides an enhanced understanding of health trends," said Nelson Rodriguez, MLS Executive Vice President. "This improved understanding will allow us to implement measures to keep our players safer and help reduce overall time missed due to injury."
The new platform allows MLS athletic trainers to increase the accuracy of injury documentation by accessing the platform from any location and integrating care-related media, like notes, X-rays, and MRIs, directly into the athlete's injury report. The system improves communication among those responsible for the athlete's care and ensures the appropriate personnel have access to the right health information at the right time to improve the care the athlete receives.
The HealtheAthlete platform digitizes current processes in sports medicine departments within professional and amateur sports organizations by combining injury management, a personal health record (PHR), and advanced reporting capabilities built specifically to manage the health of elite athletes. Use of the platform could potentially lead to decreased injury recovery times by providing a large sample of epidemiological data, enabling efficacy evaluations of current treatment methods and care.
About Cerner
Cerner is transforming health care by eliminating error, variance and waste for healthcare providers and consumers around the world. Cerner® solutions optimize processes for healthcare organizations ranging in size from single-doctor practices, to health systems, to entire countries, for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, employer health and wellness services industry and for the healthcare commerce system. These solutions are licensed by approximately 9,000 facilities around the world, including more than 2,600 hospitals; 3,500 physician practices covering more than 30,000 physicians; 500 ambulatory facilities, such as laboratories, ambulatory centers, cardiac facilities, radiology clinics and surgery centers; 800 home health facilities; and 1,600 retail pharmacies. The trademarks, service marks and logos (collectively, the "Marks") set forth herein are owned by Cerner Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and certain other countries throughout the world. Nasdaq: CERN. For more information about Cerner, please visit www.cerner.com, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
About Major League Soccer
Headquartered in New York City, Major League Soccer is the top-flight professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. MLS features many stars from the U.S., Canada, and around the world. Major League Soccer's 16th season, featuring 18 clubs each playing 34 regular season matches, kicked off, March 15, 2011. Those clubs are: Chicago Fire; Chivas USA; 2010 MLS Cup champion Colorado Rapids; Columbus Crew; D.C. United; FC Dallas; Houston Dynamo; LA Galaxy; New York Red Bulls; New England Revolution; Philadelphia Union; Real Salt Lake; San Jose Earthquakes; Seattle Sounders FC; Sporting Kansas City; Toronto FC; and, in their inaugural seasons, Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps. An expansion team in Montreal will debut in 2012.