SALT LAKE CITY, March 19, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cerner Corp. and Intermountain Healthcare announced today the implementation of iCentra, a model electronic health record (EHR), practice management and revenue cycle system, at two Intermountain hospitals and 24 clinics across northern Utah. Intermountain will use a regional deployment strategy to bring all acute care facilities, ambulatory clinics, affiliated practices and business offices live on iCentra in 2015 and 2016.
The iCentra implementation began Feb. 21 at Logan Regional and Bear River Valley hospitals and surrounding Intermountain clinics throughout Box Elder and Cache counties.
"The launch of iCentra at multiple locations is a milestone event for Intermountain as we create a model system for health care delivery that focuses on providing the best possible care for our patient population at a sustainable cost," said Marc Probst, chief information officer and vice president for Intermountain Healthcare.
iCentra was implemented 15 months after Cerner and Intermountain announced their multi-year strategic partnership. Cerner's open architecture and edge development models for innovation, paired with Intermountain's best practice standards and focus on quality improvement, enabled the implementation.
For example, iCentra integrates Intermountain's industry-recognized Care Process Models, which includes evidence-based best practice guidelines and workflow tools that blend the guidelines into care delivery as a shared baseline. These decision support tools help health care organizations identify and track medical costs, services, and outcomes specific to a care process.
"Through our shared vision, we believe Cerner and Intermountain have created a powerful collaborative to shape the future of health care in our country," said Neal Patterson, chairman and CEO, Cerner. "This implementation is only the beginning of many chapters with Intermountain."
Demonstrating the benefits of a truly integrated health care system and the parallel strategies of two organizations, iCentra is the result of collaboration among Intermountain and Cerner associates, as well as input from 400 Intermountain physicians. Teams used agile development principles to design and configure the system in six-week cycles while both companies added intellectual property that makes iCentra more unique than other fully integrated EHR systems in the market.
"The key to our approach was to focus on engaging physicians, nurses and other clinical leaders early in the project to develop the content and configuration in iCentra," said Mark Briesacher, MD, Intermountain Medical Group Senior Administrative Medical Director and iCentra Executive Lead.
This methodology differentiates iCentra from other implementations by creating an environment and operational structure for continuous improvement beyond the first go-live so that once the implementation is complete across all hospitals and systems, iCentra will become a true learning environment. This includes multifaceted teams of super users, physician coaches, informaticists, and clinical leadership.
As part of their multi-year strategic partnership, Cerner and Intermountain will continue to work with physicians, clinicians, and business teams to improve iCentra. The work is designed to enable future innovations around activity-based costing and improve the patient room of the future.
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.
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About Intermountain Healthcare
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based, not-for-profit system of 22 hospitals, 185 clinics, a Medical Group with some 1,300 employed physicians, a health plans division called SelectHealth, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain, visit www.intermountainhealthcare.org.
All statements in this press release that do not directly and exclusively relate to historical facts constitute forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of Cerner's management with respect to future events and are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties. It is important to note that Cerner's performance, and actual results, financial condition or business could differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. The words "plans" and "will" or the negative of these words, variations thereof or similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: the possibility of product-related liabilities; potential claims for system errors and warranties; the possibility of interruption at our data centers or client support facilities; our proprietary technology may be subject to claims for infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property rights of others, or may be infringed or misappropriated by others; risks associated with our recruitment and retention of key personnel; risks related to our dependence on third party suppliers; changing political, economic, regulatory and judicial influences; government regulation; significant competition and market changes; and, failure of the parties to achieve the intended benefits. Additional discussion of these and other risks, uncertainties and factors affecting Cerner's business is contained in Cerner's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, since the statements speak only as of the date that they are made. Cerner undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes in future operating results, financial condition or business over time.