MONROE, Wash. & CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Medsphere Systems Corporation and Valley General Hospital (VGH) today announced that VGH is up and running on Medsphere’s OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR). The Snohomish County community hospital, located northeast of Seattle, now looks forward to Meaningful Use 2014 certification later this year and federal reimbursement early next year. Both Medsphere and VGH estimate that federal Meaningful Use funds will cover most if not all of the initial five-year subscription costs for OpenVista.
“Along with everyone at Medsphere, I want to congratulate Valley General CEO Eric Jensen and his dedicated staff,” said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald. “Their commitment to this project has enabled us to implement OpenVista quickly and effectively with an eye toward Meaningful Use 2014. I also have to credit Eric and his leadership team for the vision they’ve shown in adopting comprehensive health IT. They understand how it can benefit the organization and where it will give them an advantage with regard to improving patient care and controlling costs.”
OpenVista is a comprehensive clinical, financial and patient accounting system and is fully certified by InfoGard for Meaningful Use 2014. Combined with Medsphere’s proven and rapid implementation process, OpenVista will enable VGH to quickly qualify for federal stimulus dollars available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Medsphere’s subscription service pricing model—a pay-as-you-go structure with no huge upfront fees—will also mitigate financial pressure on the hospital.
“The clinicians and staff here at Valley General have shown tremendous dedication and optimism during this entire implementation process,” said CEO Jensen, FACHE. “We asked them to support a rapid implementation and they buckled down and got the job done. I couldn’t be more proud. Of course, we couldn’t have done this without Medsphere’s professional implementation team and the long days they put in to get the system live. This was a great team effort and we look forward to the difference OpenVista will make at VGH.”
Medsphere’s OpenVista is the commercialized version of the VistA EHR created and developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) over 20 years ago and credited with helping turn the agency into a national leader in quality patient care. Using open source code available from the VA through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), OpenVista can be implemented much more quickly and affordably than traditional proprietary solutions.
About Valley General Hospital
Valley General Hospital (VGH) has served the citizens of Washington’s East Snohomish County since opening as a public hospital in 1960. To meet the health care needs of the community, VGH provides emergency, acute inpatient care, surgical and specialty services. The patient and family-centered philosophy embodied by VGH clinicians and staff, combined with a commitment to advancing medical technologies, enables the hospital to provide exceptional care for whatever life brings.
About Medsphere and OpenVista
Founded in 2002 and based in Carlsbad, Calif., Medsphere Systems Corporation is an award-winning organization of clinical and technology professionals working to make quality health IT solutions accessible to organizations of virtually any size, shape or budget. Medsphere’s OpenVista is a portfolio of clinical products and services that leverages an electronic health record (EHR) system developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This VistA EHR is widely credited with helping transform the VA into the nation’s most efficient and clinically effective healthcare organization. OpenVista, the most fully commercialized VistA offspring, is a responsible reapplication of the VA’s $8.5 billion investment, which recent studies show have yielded billions in benefits, primarily from the near elimination of medication administration issues and duplicate testing.
Medsphere’s subscription-based pricing model enables hospital systems and integrated delivery network customers to pay for OpenVista from their operating budget with no upfront costs or back-end balloon payments. Expert implementation and other services facilitate rapid transition to a paperless clinical environment based on best practices and evidence-based medicine in 9 to 12 months. Medsphere also actively nurtures the OpenVista Ecosystem, a global community of customers, partners, and other collaborators who drive innovation to the benefit of all.
Learn more about Medsphere’s OpenVista at www.medsphere.com.
