IBM and PatientKeeper Collaborate to Reduce Medical Errors
Mobile Healthcare Platform Helps Hospitals and Doctors Enhance Care While Protecting Patient Privacy
Brighton, MA, and White Plains, NY, May 15, 2001 - IBM and PatientKeeper Inc. today announced a collaboration to offer a mobile healthcare platform to hospitals and other medical facilities to enhance patient care and reduce medical errors.
A report released last month by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality said electronic order entry, monitoring, data gathering and distribution of prescriptions could help eliminate medication errors and other adverse drug events that are estimated to kill or injure as many as 770,000 people each year.
With personal digital assistants and enterprise software from PatientKeeper, clinicians have access to a full range of patient care and administrative functions, including ordering and reviewing lab tests, prescribing medications, accessing medical records, and checking for adverse drug reactions. PatientKeeper's open mobile platform enables physicians to share patient information among multiple independently authored applications under a single intuitive user interface. The information can be shared securely with other caregivers throughout the medical facility to ensure patient privacy.
IBM will assess hospital's and medical facilities' technology needs and install back-end systems -- including servers, workstations and printers - as well as provide systems integration services. The PatientKeeper application runs on the IBM pSeries eServer and uses IBM storage technology. In addition, IBM Global Services will provide on-site and Web-based training to physicians and their staff.
"This is an exciting development for those of us who practice medicine, and are concerned about quality of care and reduction in medical errors," said Eric Pifer, M.D. of the University of Pennsylvania. "This collaboration will enable us to retrieve vital information on our patients at the point of care and significantly reduce administrative paperwork."
"IBM's e-business technology and implementation services when linked with the PatientKeeper solution is an important step in helping to reduce medical errors. Wireless devices that can process and sift through important data will be standard in hospitals and clinics in the near future," said Russell J. Ricci, M.D., general manager IBM Global Healthcare.
Richard Hall, chief operating officer of PatientKeeper adds, "With this collaboration, we are melding the applications that physicians need and want with the technologies and services that will enable efficient implementation and reliable performance. This is a major step toward helping physicians practice medicine the way they've always wanted to: less paperwork, more accurate and timely information at their fingertips, the ability to communicate with remote systems and departments -- all of which will have a bottom-line effect on improving care and reducing healthcare costs."
The collaboration between PatientKeeper and IBM will begin immediately.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest technology provider. For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.
About PatientKeeper
PatientKeeper, Inc. (formerly The Virtmed Corporation), developers of PatientKeeper Personal™, the world's most widely used handheld patient management solution, allows mobile clinicians to use handheld technology to easily and immediately communicate with their organization's information systems and perform critical patient care functions. PatientKeeper is committed to creating an open architecture and universal platform for mobile healthcare computing, enabling any internal or third-party application to be seamlessly integrated on one handheld device. PatientKeeper offers a range of mobile computing solutions, including PatientKeeper Personal, the award-winning patient management tool with more than 40,000 users; ChargeKeeper™, for capturing billing; and LabKeeper™, for reviewing lab results.
PatientKeeper is a privately held company. PatientKeeper's investors include Whitney & Co., New Enterprise Associates, Frazier & Company, 3Com Corporation, Mediphase Venture Partners, Mosaix Ventures, Riggs Capital Partners, Child Health Corporation of America, Thomas Weisel Partners, Pacific Ventures Group, and Tenet Healthcare Corporation. To learn more about PatientKeeper, please visit our Web site at www.patientkeeper.com.
Contact
Stephen S. Hau
PatientKeeper
(617) 987-0304
E-mail
Mike Shore
ARiA Marketing
(904) 278-3234
E-mail