CLEVELAND -- University Hospitals (UH) has received two national information technology awards for its FirstGateways Physician Portal, an electronic data bank for UH clinicians system-wide, which acts as a one-stop haven for patient data.

UH was one of only three health systems nationally to receive the 2007 Most Wired Innovator Award for innovation in information technology. Most Wired is a quarterly national publication that highlights information technology practices that help solve strategic problems in health care.

UH also was selected to receive the CIO 100 Award for excellence and achievement in information technology. This prestigious award is presented to 100 companies nationwide by CIO. CIO is a semi-monthly national publication, which provides information executives, their partners and their companies with real-life, in-depth information on what their peers at other organizations are doing to leverage information technology for business advantage.

The Physician Portal allows UH clinicians and select non-UH entities, such as long-term care facilities and federally qualified health clinics, to access comprehensive medical information on more than 700,000 patients, 24x7 from anywhere in the world. The portals benefits include improved patient care, safety and efficiency as clinicians have instantaneous access to medication and allergy information and are able to communicate test results to patients more quickly.

Patients no longer need to retell their medical history again and again because all of that information is now accessible to physicians with a click of a mouse, says Edward Marx, chief information officer for University Hospitals. Additionally, the information is available system-wide so that a physician at one UH facility can assess the information for a patient admitted at another UH facility.

Before the Physician Portal, physicians relied on multiple data resources, and physicians at one h
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Contact: George Stamatis
george.stamatis@uhhospitals.org
216-844-3667
University Hospitals of Cleveland
27-Jul-2007