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New York, New York, January 8, 2008 — For years, government health officials and technology companies have looked with great anticipation to the ever-advancing computer era to help reduce the nearly 100,000 unintentional deaths caused each year by medical mistakes at hospitals across the country. Yet, despite such great hope, many hospitals have been slow to implement change. And of those that have, rollouts have been particularly lengthy — sometimes over many years, while others encompassing one clinical department at a time.

This pattern of slow adoption is what makes the creation, training and implementation of Patient Real-time Information Systems Management (PRISM) at Continuum Health Partners so remarkable. The rollout of this complex electronic patient care environment was completed in record time at the 2,700-bed health care system, which includes Beth Israel Medical Center, St. Luke's and Roosevelt Hospitals, and Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. Each hospital (one by one, on a staggered timeline) implemented each component of PRISM in all clinical departments at once. The Computerized Provider Entry (CPOE) component was implemented in all of its clinical departments and nursing units in an unprecedented period of only nine months.

How did Continuum achieve success in such a relatively short period of time? Because of intense strategic design, a thorough pre-launch period of user training and, indeed, dedicated support at every level of the hospital system.

"We began examining a system-wide, integrated electronic patient care environment as early as 2003," said Gail F. Donovan, Continuum's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "Once we committed ourselves to moving forward, our next step was to team up with a provider who had the right product for our hospitals and who could help us implement in the aggressive timeframe what we had set for ourselves."

That partner turned out to be GE Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions, a leading provider of clinical, financial and administrative information technology solutions.

Together, Continuum and GE developed an aggressive agenda for transition to PRISM — a moniker given to Continuum's uniquely tailored system powered by GE's Centricity Enterprise Solution. This effort was supported by individuals at every level of the organization, from senior leadership to the clinical and ancillary staff providing the care. The transition involved three major phases:

Planning and Design: During the design phase, multidisciplinary teams of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other staff collaborated with GE experts to establish clinical workflows and processes to be standardized across Continuum.

Configuration and Testing: After GE configured the Centricity Enterprise to PRISM's design content, a series of "build validation" events were held for Continuum participants to review the new processes and validate the functionality of the system to ensure it met the users' requirements.

Training and Activation: End-user training began in November 2004 and continued through late 2006.

The rollout began in May 2005 at Beth Israel's 894-bed Petrie Division in Lower Manhattan, which became the first of Continuum's five primary sites to "go live" with PRISM. Less than two years later, the four other sites, totaling over 10,500 system users, including 5,000 physicians, were exclusively using PRISM.

What Does PRISM Do?

Results Reporting — Lets PRISM users view a variety of patient information and clinical laboratory and radiology results online. Clinical Documentation — Allows nursing staff to document patient assessments and vital signs online directly in PRISM, where providers and authorized staff can view them immediately.

Medication Administration Record — Lets nurses chart medication administration online.

Pharmacy — Enables pharmacists to receive orders directly in PRISM, and review and verify them online and then fill them.

Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) — Eliminates paper orders, allowing providers to place medication, diagnostic, treatment and care orders electronically, entering them directly into PRISM. In addition to reducing potential medication errors associated with handwritten orders, CPOE also allows physicians to streamline and improve the order process through the use of standardized "order sets" — groupings of orders on specific diagnoses or problems. (These were reviewed and revised by physicians across Continuum beforehand.)

In order to ensure that users would be able to navigate PRISM, Continuum provided ample training. Health care providers utilized a web-based training model, classroom sessions or a combination of the two to gain their own individual comfort level with system involvement. In addition, for the first two weeks after each site's activation, several resources were available around the clock to support PRISM, including:.

PAUs — PRISM Advanced Users are managers and other selected staff who received extra training. They wore bright yellow "I'm a PAU" buttons and were on duty every day, during every shift in every unit.

"Green Jackets" — Dubbed the "Green Jackets" for their colorful attire, local PRISM implementation team members provided on-site PRISM training and troubleshooting around the clock.

The Help Desk — Continuum's information service phone lines were open 24/7 to provide assistance with PRISM passwords, hardware problems and more.

Of course, creating an integrated electronic environment includes updating lots of computer and networking technology. As part of an initiative to create a wireless computer network at the Continuum hospitals, work crews had to upgrade data closets and install wireless access points in the ceilings that would allow for the transmission of wireless signals. This wireless network made it possible for nurses to wheel mobile computers from room to room on patient units. Dubbed COWs (Computer On Wheels), these mobile computers allow nurses to complete all the data entry at the patient's bedside or in the hallways. A wireless network also allows staff to easily hand-carry laptops or other computing devices, and for stationary computers to be placed exactly where they need to be without the hassle of cables.

"Since the very nature of an integrated environment is fluid, rather than static, PRISM is continually receiving feedback from providers," said Tom Karson, MD, Continuum's Chief Medical Information Officer and an architect of PRISM. "In response, different groups are constantly working to deal with issues that arise and are enhancing the system based on user feedback, which has been tremendous. PRISM processes more than 1.5 million transactions every day."

"GE is proud to have been a strategic partner during this large and complex multi-site healthcare IT implementation," said Jorge Cerda, general manager for Enterprise Solutions Service at GE Healthcare. "The speed and efficiency demonstrated by Continuum serves as a great example for other hospital systems looking to create a true electronic medical environment."

About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologiesİand services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems,İperformance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.