Picis, The Sullivan Group Join to Help Emergency Department Clinicians Identify Patient Risk, Reduce Errors

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TSG Clinical Rules Information Coupled with Picis ED PulseCheck Decision Support to Help Clinicians Enhance Patient Safety and Quality of Care

Wakefield, Mass.,— Sept 27, 2010 —PicisandThe Sullivan Group(TSG) are integrating TSG Clinical Rules with Picis ED PulseCheck™ to quickly notify ED physicians when a high-risk issue exists for a patient, identify best practices and help reduce the mostcommon medical errors found in emergency care.

Picis will demonstrate the new TSG-supplied clinical rules usingPicis ED PulseCheck 5.0at the American College of Emergency Physicians ACEP 2010 Scientific Assembly in Las Vegas, Sept. 28-Oct. 1, in booth #1143.

Every two minutes,ED PulseCheck’s InSight ED™rules processor reads through the critical patient chart data provided simultaneously by multiple caregivers and departments, and compares the data to clinical rules from TSG. The TSG Clinical Rules scan for information associated with high patient risks that may not have been considered by the clinicians, yet may be key to accurately diagnosing and/or treating an ED patient’s condition. These rules have been developed by TSG based on 12 years of extensive clinical evidence.

Once high-risk criteria are found, ED PulseCheck's InSight ED notifies the clinician and recommends a specific course of action, such as administering a medication or investigating whether the patient or family member has a prior medical condition that might warrant a different diagnosis or treatment. This process helps support decision-making at the point of care and improves patient safety, while mitigating risk of malpractice claims and litigation.

“The Sullivan Group shares Picis’ commitment to help physicians prevent medical errors and ultimately improve patient care,” saidDan Sullivan, M.D., J.D., FACEP, president and CEO of The Sullivan Group. “The field of risk management has traditionally focused on how to react after a medical error and adverse outcome have occurred. The Sullivan Group Clinical Rules work with ED PulseCheck’s InSight ED to proactively identify potential for complications and medical errors, advising care providers that there is a question or risk that should be addressed.”

TSG Clinical Rules address chief complaints that represent the greatest risk to patients and the clinicians who treat them. An example of TSG rules that identify potentially unknown risks is the case of diagnosing Spinal Cord Injury without Radiologic Abnormality (SCIWORA), a condition that might be found in an automobile accident victim, but can be easy to miss. The victim incurs trauma to the spine and partial paralysis of the arms or legs at the scene, however, this symptom typically diminishes before the patient arrives in the ED.

“If the paramedic’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) notes are in the record, the system reads it every two minutes. When it finds that there has been a car accident or head or neck trauma and weakness in the arms or legs, but nothing appears about this event in the physician notes, a clinical rule will notify the clinician – ‘consider the possibility of spinal cord injury without radiologic abnormality,’” Sullivan said. “If the physician failed to correctly diagnose SCIWORA, the patient could be sent home or sit for a long period of time in the ED, causing the bruise within the spinal cord to grow and potentially paralyze the patient for life. That’s why we focus directly on issues like SCIWORA where every minute is critical and there is a lot of patient risk.”

Approximately 75 percent of Picis ED PulseCheck customer organizations already rely on TSG’s risk management tool within ED PulseCheck — including Virtua in New Jersey, The George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and Henry Ford Health System in Michigan.

“The most effectiveED risk management solutionsprovide physicians with up-to-date medical information specifically tailored to ED scenarios that enable them to identify serious conditions quickly and follow best practices for patient care,” noted Mark D. Crockett, M.D., FACEP, president, Emergency Care Division, Picis, in his blog post,

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A Day in the ED: Enter at Our Own Risk

. “By allowing ED physicians to spend more time with patients and less time pouring through textbooks or web archives, it helps clinicians make better informed decisions more quickly.” 

About The Sullivan Group

The Sullivan Group provides software and services solutions to help reduce medical errors and malpractice claims across the spectrum of high risk clinical care.  TSG clients - hospitals, physician groups and RRGs - have reduced malpractice claims and financial losses due to medical errors up to 50%.  TSG achieves these results by leveraging an evidence-based approach to integrate extensive clinical knowledge with technology focused on the point of care. 

About Picis        

Picis, an Ingenix company, is a global provider of innovative information solutions that enable rapid and sustained delivery of clinical, financial and operational results in the acute care areas of the hospital. For more information about Picis, visit

href="http://www.picis.com/solutions/default.cfm?utm_source=100920&utm_medium=PressRelease">www.picis.com/solutions

. Follow Picis on Twitter at

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About Ingenix

Ingenix is a leading provider of health information, technology and consulting services. Organizations, institutions, businesses and government agencies that comprise the health care system depend on Ingenix solutions and insights to improve their performance. Visitwww.ingenix.comfor more information.

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