A Medical Device Daily

Eclipsys (Atlanta) reported that Lahey Clinic (Burlington, Massachusetts) has signed a strategic agreement to implement a wide-range of Eclipsys Sunrise Enterprise clinical solutions to create an enterprise-wide electronic medical record (EMR).

The EMR project involves Lahey Clinic's two acute care medical centers and will establish an interoperable platform to leverage a prior investment in an ambulatory EMR solution for Lahey's outpatient settings.

By implementing an integrated inpatient-ambulatory EMR, Lahey Clinic will create a seamless flow of patient information across facilities to support continuity of care and enhanced clinical decision making in the physician office, clinic and hospital care settings.

"We sought a partner that could provide superior clinical solutions, clinical content, and a shared vision for interoperability," said Sandy Kurtz, MD, chief operating officer, Lahey Clinic. "Eclipsys demonstrated to us that they would be the best partner to collaborate with us in utilizing technology to support high quality and safe patient care across our campus, as well as enhancing our institution's acclaimed high acuity service areas. In addition, Eclipsys' willingness and technical capability to leverage existing Lahey technology solutions was attractive to us. We look forward to a successful implementation and fully taking advantage of this opportunity for significant clinical and operational benefits."

Lahey Clinic will implement Eclipsys' Sunrise Acute Care, Sunrise Pharmacy and Knowledge-Based Charting solutions to establish an EMR with clinical decision support.

The Eclipsys computerized physician order entry solution (CPOE) will be deployed in a staged rollout. Eclipsys leads the industry in CPOE adoption.

The Lahey Clinic EMR decision coincides with the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which is designed to offer incentives to hospitals and providers for "Meaningful Use of an Electronic Health Record" to lower the costs and complexity associated with the nation's healthcare system. An implementation timeline has been developed to support Lahey Clinic in meeting the stimulus package qualification/payment deadlines.