Member News Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 19, 2005

Silver Cross to Improve Patient Care with Electronic Medical Records/Filmless Technology in 2006

Many of the most widely used medical tests are painless. It's the waiting for the results that hurts. But not for much longer. Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet will invest over a million dollars in the next few months to improve patient care by digitizing patients' medical records. Silver Cross will be the first hospital in the area to implement this innovative picture archival and communications system (PACS) in partnership with McKesson Medical Imaging Group, the industry leader in PACS.

The hospital is already leading the revolution to improve the health of the residents of the southwest suburbs having adopted a similar system in the Emergency Department a year ago. Emergency patients receive their X-ray results within minutes using filmless technology called computed radiography.

"This technology is just one of the reasons why Silver Cross was recently named one of the most improved wired hospital by the American Hospital Association," says Paul Pawlak, President/CEO of Silver Cross Hospital. "Now, we are taking it a step further by adopting PACS throughout the hospital. Our goal is to create a more complete electronic medical record, which will lead to a better experience for our patients."

PACS will be used for CT, MRI, ultrasound, nuclear medicine and X-ray images that are currently printed out on film. Instead of waiting for hard copies of diagnostic images and the radiology reports to accompany them-a process that can take hours from the technician through the radiologist to the referring physician, doctors and nurses will be able to pull up a patient's test results on a computer screen within minutes.

"Basically anyone with authorized access to our hospital's secured computer system can get the results," said Marybeth Antone, administrative director of cardiology and diagnostic imaging at Silver Cross Hospital. "It's a huge timesaver."

When the new PACS system is installed in March, images will be sent electronically to a workstation where a board-certified radiologist will review them. The reports and images will then be available to the 400 physicians on Silver Cross' Medical Staff throughout the hospital on computers at the nurses' stations, high-film usage areas such as the ICU and the emergency department, as well as from the comfort of their home or office through a protected Internet site. Physicians and caregivers will even be able to view images simultaneously with other doctors consulting on the case or even while the test is being performed.

What this means for patients is reduced hospital stays, accurate and more timely diagnosis, complete medical records, and decreased wait times for results, "With the PACS system, the agonizing wait for tests can be reduced virtually to real time," says Antone.

"For a physician, the time this saves is valuable," said Dr. Harry Platt Chairman of the Silver Cross Radiology Department. "Not only does it mean a radiologist can assess the images faster, but the image will be available for the physician to look at sooner, and that may be the difference between life and death in an emergency situation."

The images will appear on special computer monitors that are designed to provide as much or more resolution than a two-dimensional image from film.

"That's especially important if you are looking at X-rays," Antone said. "The machines provide exceptionally good resolution which can lead to a more accurate diagnosis."

In addition to the speed of results and improved images, PACS allows the images to be stored easily. Hospitals are required to keep medical images for many years. That can amount to a lot of film. Film-based diagnostic imaging and storage is also extremely expensive, and the old images are of limited use because they are cumbersome to retrieve.

"Using PACS, our patients will have an entirely digital medical record that could be retrieved by any physician who treats them, anywhere," comments Antone. "PACS is just another tool that allows us to treat our patients the way they should be treated."

In addition to implementing PACS in the next few months, Silver Cross will open a new 35-bed unit to care for surgical patients on the hospital's sixth floor in March. Patients will be able to control everything in the room from their bed including the temperature and room lighting. The room will also have a bathroom with a shower, furnished with hidden medical equipment, wireless Internet access and have a pull-out bed so a patient's loved ones can spend the night. Also in the spring, Phase I of the hospital's emergency department expansion will be completed. Patients will be cared for in the new treatment rooms while the current rooms are being remodeled. When completed in December 2006, Silver Cross will have the capacity to care for 60,000 patients a year in a 46,000 facility-twice its current size. For more information on these and other initiatives at Silver Cross, visit www.silvercross.org. Or to see first had how Silver Cross is building a better experience, call (815) 740-7119 for a personal tour.

Silver Cross Hospital has been creating world-class health care experiences for the southwest suburban communities for over a century. Silver Cross has been recognized as one of our nation's 100 Top Hospitals by Solucient and as one of America's Most Friendliest Hospitals by the American Alliance of Healthcare Providers. Exceptional care. It's not unusual. It's simply the way you should be treated.