St. Peter's Hospital of Albany Improves Core Measures...( ANN ARBOR Mich. Oct. 13 /- Thomso...),Health

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Thomson Reuters announced today that St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, NY, has significantly improved its core measures processes -- such as increasing its discharge instruction compliance for heart failure patients from 85.4 percent in first-quarter 2007 to 100 percent in first-quarter 2008.

St. Peter's Hospital, part of St. Peter's Health Care Services of Albany, is one of only 10 hospitals in the nation named for eight years as a Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals(R): Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success winner.

These achievements resulted from a series of initiatives put in place by St. Peter's to improve patient safety and the quality of care while improving clinical outcomes. As part of its comprehensive clinical quality improvement program, St. Peter's implemented the Clinical Xpert(TM) CareFocus(TM) solution from Thomson Reuters.

CareFocus, an extension of the Clinical Xpert Navigator solution, gives clinicians access to patient data via Palm, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry(R) smartphones as well as through a Web portal. CareFocus enables clinicians to build clinical profiles to identify high-risk patients from within the entire hospital census based on combinations of their medications, lab and radiology results, vital signs, diagnoses, observations, active orders, demographics, and other transcribed reports.

By applying profiles against clinical patient data, CareFocus provides real-time identification of patients with core measure conditions, co-morbidities, high-risk medication profiles, and other high-risk conditions - before their conditions become more serious. Patients who meet the hospital's preset criteria are automatically segmented into lists that are delivered via Clinical Xpert(TM) Navigator to the individual clinician's desktop or handheld device. By identifying these high-risk patients early, hospitals can significantly improve clinical outcomes while reducing mortalit
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