High-tech partnership to aid patients, hospitals

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by Paul Schreiber |ret||ret||tab|

SBJ Reporter|ret||ret||tab|

pschreiber@sbj.net|ret||ret||tab|

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A partnership between Springfield-based Creative Healthcare Systems and Houston, Texas-based SIS Technologies is designed to provide radio-frequency identification of patients and their medication information to community hospitals and related medical facilities. The agreement was signed Jan. 15, said Steve Everest, president and CEO of 12-year-old CHS, which is located at 435 S. Union.|ret||ret||tab|

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Radio frequency identification|ret||ret||tab|

The chief objective behind the SIS relationship is "a joint effort to bring radio-frequency ID tags into community health care," Everest said. Scanning a patient wrist bracelet containing a computer chip and antenna, a hand scanner allows medical staff to check drug information at bedside, he added. The bracelet may also contain a barcode and use that technology, he said.|ret||ret||tab|

Medical staff can "read the patient's bracelet without physically touching them," Everest said. Then, through the use of a laptop or a tablet PC hooked wirelessly to the hospital's main network, they can verify drug dosages. The hands-off scanner technology receives patient information when placed within 14 inches of the wristband, he added. |ret||ret||tab|

Consequently, assessments on sleeping patients, skittish children or the elderly can be accomplished with greater ease, Everest said, emphasizing the use of the radio-frequency identification technology over printed barcodes. |ret||ret||tab|

"The scanning of that chip is a much less intrusive mechanism than trying to line up a label properly and do it," he added. CHS software can be configured to use either the radio-frequency identification method or barcode technology, he added.|ret||ret||tab|

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CHS software|ret||ret||tab|

The software is a CHS creation and part of its MedGenix line of products developed specifically for health care applications in community hospitals. "It's of our own proprietary design, and it's based on a relational database from IBM and Informix," Everest said.|ret||ret||tab|

Sixteen local employees and one software developer/owner who lives in Kansas City comprise the CHS staff. The company has five stockholders and 2003 revenues of close to $2 million, Everest said. |ret||ret||tab|

A forecast for 2004 pushes revenues close to $5 million, he added. "We are looking at expanding our business and hiring locally from the Silicon Holler,'" Everest said.|ret||ret||tab|

There are about 750,000 medical records being handled by MedGenix, Everest said. In Missouri, CHS software is in use in Aurora Community Hospital, Cedar County Memorial in El Dorado Springs and Northwest Medical Center in Albany.|ret||ret||tab|

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SIS partnership |ret||ret||tab|

Of the relationship with SIS Technologies, "there's no ownership web here, but we have a formal agreement with them. They actually get compensated a percentage of our application that they sell. It's kind of like a reseller agreement on steroids," Everest said.|ret||ret||tab|

What SIS does is "put the network together, put the operating system on the box, do Web services for the client and do all of the infrastructure things with that network," Everest said. |ret||ret||tab|

A typical reseller arrangement would be buying a CHS product and taking it on site to install, Everest said, but the CHS involvement is more extensive because the software requires significant consulting work prior to implementation and use. This necessitates CHS going on site and doing the training itself, he added. |ret||ret||tab|

"We're rewarding (SIS Technologies) with a percentage deal, if they'll go find the deal and do the infrastructure, get the hardware ready, get the network ready, all things ready for us to come in and do our thing," Everest said. "(SIS Technologies') strengths are in putting together networks, (radio-frequency identification) devices and related infrastructure," he added.|ret||ret||tab|

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Sun Microsystems|ret||ret||tab|

The system will run on a Sun Microsystems platform. |ret||ret||tab|

"The joint CHS and SIS solution, running on the Sun platform, can help these hospitals save time and money by allowing them to better track and manage their pharmaceutical inventory," according to Mike Haymaker, manager at Sun Microsystems, in an SIS Technologies press release.|ret||ret||tab|

Sun platforms are durable and "overbuilt," Everest said, stressing that the company's server boxes are capable of processing an enormous amount of information rapidly and accurately.|ret||ret||tab|

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Barcode technology |ret||ret||tab|

Success with barcode technology in the management of commercial inventory is behind a Feb. 25 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services press release in which Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Mark B. McClellan said barcodes on prescription medications will help prevent up to "500,000 adverse events and transfusioning errors over 20 years." |ret||ret||tab|

McClellan added that a reduction in health care costs over that time could amount to roughly $93 billion. Previously approved medicines and blood products will have two years to comply with the barcode requirements. New medicines will need to have them in place by 60 days, the release said.|ret||ret||tab|

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Testing the waters |ret||ret||tab|

Finding clients will be the order of the day at the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals annual conference in Dallas on March 17-19, Everest said. |ret||ret||tab|

At the conference, CHS will explain its RFID-enabled module as part of its Pharmacy Medication Administration Record function to some 150 affiliated community health care members members, he added.|ret||ret||tab|

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