Medical Center Rolls Out Cutting-Edge Clinical Information System

Learning the ropes of a new resource: All staff will soon complete training on the Integrated Clinical Information System (ICIS).

The current Hospital Information System (HIS) at the Medical Center, a major innovation when it was installed over 20 years ago, is gradually being replaced by an updated model. The Eclipsys Sunrise Clinical Manager XA Web-based system, recently named the Integrated Clinical Information System (ICIS) by NYU Medical Center, is already in use by physicians, nurse practitioners, residents, and staff in most units. By the end of April, training on the new system should be complete.

In this first phase, ICIS is being used for patient lists and the retrieval of laboratory, radiology, and other clinical reports. In early 2006, ICIS will be used for safer and faster order entry and clinical decision support. For example, ICIS’s designers have installed rules in the program that doctors can activate to, say, prevent a medication from being ordered for a patient whose blood pressure has dropped below a certain level. These rules can also spot and alert staff to such potential problems as allergies, drug interactions, or drug-food interactions, says Pravene A. Nath, M.D., Senior Director of Clinical Patient Care Systems.

Documentation of patient care will also become easier. For instance, nurses will be able to use templates to easily create charts that are customized for their area of service. Doctors can create standardized progress notes, then customize them for each patient. And a number of healthcare providers—such as nurses, nutritionists, and social workers—can all put their notes in a single digital chart for a patient.

“We’re excited about what’s to come,” says Kimberly K. Glassman, R.N., Director of Nursing for Oncology Services, who was on the selection committee for ICIS. “The system has tremendous safety and timesaving features.”