El Camino Hospital Partners with Eclipsys To Develop Wireless, Paperless Facility
Mountain View-based El Camino Hospital has partnered with health information systems developer Eclipsys to create a "wireless and paperless" hospital, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports. El Camino will pay Eclipsys $8 million annually for the next 10 years to help it design a $200 million inpatient facility that is scheduled to open in 2009. To improve customer service and reduce costs at the hospital, Eclipsys will consolidate and manage relationships with El Camino's 102 information technology vendors. El Camino CEO Lee Domanico said, "We want to be a smart hospital. The highest-tech hospital in the country." El Camino officials plan to provide wireless handheld computers for physicians; wearable communication devices for nurses, so that patients and caregivers can contact them without calling a nurse station; and tablet computers that nurses can use to document patient care. El Camino's physicians also have requested access to patients' electronic medical records and other hospital information systems from their offices. El Camino physicians tend to work exclusively at the hospital, making it a "perfect laboratory" to create a network between physician offices and the hospital, according to Dr. Bart Lally, who is helping to design the new systems (May, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 4/8).
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