A Medical Device Daily

TheUniversity of Maryland School of Nursing (Baltimore) and Cerner (Kansas City, Missouri), an IT supplier, in cooperation with the University of Maryland Medical Center , reported an agreement designed to bring “the latest advances in healthcare information technology directly into the hands of future nurses.“

Cerner will provide clinical software to the School of Nursing's clinical simulation laboratories.

For more than a decade, Cerner and the University of Maryland Medical System have partnered to increase safety and decrease costs of healthcare delivery with inpatient electronic health record clinical solutions. This collaborative partnership allows for these clinical solutions to be extended into the School of Nursing's curriculum and teaching approach.

“Bringing Cerner's solutions into the traditional and virtual classroom and simulation laboratories allows the University of Maryland's nursing students an advantage as they prepare for their careers,“ said Charlotte Weaver, PhD, RN, and Cerner's chief nursing officer. “The ability to respond to patient scenarios in an interactive, electronic environment helps these future nurses hone the skills vital to their success and to their patients' overall well being.“

The program is also designed to support the university's nursing faculty by enabling the development of data-driven teaching cases and interactive tools. Faculty will be able to view students' online entries to review, comment upon and measure students' work from anywhere at anytime.

In other agreements:

• StarBak Communications (Waltham, Massachusetts), a provider of integrated network video solutions designed to allow organizations to create, manage, deliver and display video-based applications over IP networks, reported that it will be participating in the demonstration of a new integrated clinical communications system at the upcoming American Telemedicine Association (Washington) conference to be held May 7-10 in San Diego.

In collaboration with IBM (Armonk, New York), Polycom (Milpitas, California) and medical informatics company Sybermedica (Cambridge, UK), StarBak will demonstrate its Integrated Network Video solution.

Plexus Systems (Auburn Hills, Michigan), providers of Plexus Online, an on-demand management performance system, said it has entered into an arrangement with Fairview Health Services (Minneapolis) to develop software tools focused on performance improvement, lean techniques and other capabilities throughout Fairview hospitals and clinics.

Plexus Online is designed to allow organizations to track critical aspects of their operations.