PatientKeeper® Inc., a leading provider of healthcare applications for physicians, today announced that five hospitals in Ontario, Canada – the four sites of the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance(HPHA), and the Alexandra Marine & General Hospital(AMGH) – will add PatientKeeper CPOE™ and PatientKeeper Medication Reconciliation™ to their existing PatientKeeper clinical automation solution. The hospitals also will expand their use of PatientKeeper NoteWriter™ physician documentation software.

HPHA and AMGH serve a region encompassing two counties in southwestern Ontario with a population of approximately 135,000. HPHA comprises four hospitals in Clinton, St. Marys, Seaforth and Stratford; AMGH is in Goderich. The five hospitals have a combined total of 250 beds and 150 physicians, and share a common information technology infrastructure.

PatientKeeper's software enables providers rounding at the hospitals to easily access and act on all their patient information from their smartphones, tablets, laptops or PCs – technology that helps to enhance patient care and safety. HPHA and AMGH have used several PatientKeeper applications for more than four years. The new capabilities enable providers to enter medical, lab and test orders electronically, and to manage patients' medications at each transition in care efficiently and effectively.

“Expanding our PatientKeeper deployment is part of our continuous system-wide initiatives to improve patient safety and clinician efficiency,” John Brennan, HPHA's IT Director, said. “CPOE impacts safety by eliminating handwriting illegibility; medication reconciliation helps to ensure the accuracy and continuity of medications at critical junctures in the care continuum. Bottom line: this technology will help our providers to spend more time with patients, reduce adverse events, and do it cost effectively.”

PatientKeeper functions as an overlay to the hospitals' MEDITECH® MAGIC 5.67 EHR and other departmental systems, making it possible for providers to get all the patient information they need efficiently in a single system optimized for their workflow.

“PatientKeeper is very user-friendly software appropriate for a wide range of physicians' needs,” Robert Davis, M.D., Physician IT Co-Lead for HPHA and AMGH, said. “Adapting PatientKeeper to our physicians' workflow has been extremely rewarding. Now we are adding CPOE and medication reconciliation to our existing modalities. This should increase efficiency and potentially decrease mortality even further.”

“PatientKeeper has improved my workflow by allowing me to get insights into my patients' needs before arriving at the hospital,” Paul Gill, M.D., Physician IT Co-Lead for HPHA and AMGH, said. “I am optimistic that an expanded PatientKeeper presence in our hospitals will help drive further improvement in patient outcomes and further optimize physicians' precious time.”