SAN DIEGO - GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) and a leading provider of information technology solutions, has announced that Scripps Health, a not-for-profit community-based health care delivery network in San Diego, has elected to upgrade its electronic medical record system with GE's Centricity® Enterprise Solution, an integrated clinical, financial and administrative solution. Scripps selected the Web-based Centricity® Enterprise Solution for its capacity to help further streamline its workflow and improve productivity across the continuum of patient care. This upgrade will provide an improved foundation for Scripps to share patient health information throughout its five acute care hospital campuses and 13 clinics.

Through a suite of enhanced information management capabilities, GE's Centricity Enterprise will help improve the way Scripps' team of physicians, clinicians and other health care professionals access critical clinical information, while reducing administrative workload and automating the charging process.

"By maximizing the use and benefits of clinical and financial information technology in order to better serve patients, Scripps provides a real-world example of how health care providers and information technology vendors can work together to improve the quality of patient care," said Vishal Wanchoo, president and CEO of GE Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions.
The system upgrade will offer several benefits to Scripps, such as improvement of patient lists to include role-based lists and improvement of clinical documentation that further supports patient care. Allergy checking and medication reconciliation are two enhancements that will directly impact the quality and safety of patient care.

"We are proud to continue our partnership with GE toward our goal of having a common platform that will provide a consolidated view of relevant patient information," said Drexel DeFord, Scripps Health chief information officer. "The Centricity Enterprise product will enhance our clinicians' ability to make decisions, resulting in even better service and outcomes."

Upgrading to Centricity Enterprise will also allow clinicians to screen medication orders for potential errors, support the future use point of care bar coding for safer medication administration, and electronically document patient encounters. By moving to the most current version of Centricity Enterprise, Scripps will also be able to contribute to future development of the product, while positioning itself to receive future upgrades and enhancements more efficiently.

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