Beaufort Memorial Hospital Replaces Pagers With Imprivata Cortext As Standard Communication Solution For All Providers

Imprivata® IMPR, a leading provider of authentication, access management and secure communications solutions for the healthcare industry, today announced that Beaufort Memorial Hospital (Beaufort, S.C.) is replacing pagers with Imprivata Cortext® as the standard form of communication for all its care providers. Imprivata Cortext is the secure communications platform for healthcare that enables healthcare organizations to replace pagers and improve care coordination inside and outside the hospital. Beaufort Memorial's Medical Executive Committee decided to standardize on Imprivata Cortext for all its physicians to improve clinical communication and care coordination. “Several of our hospital departments have been using Imprivata Cortext and it has proven to be a far more convenient, effective solution for clinical communication and care coordination than pagers,” said Kurt Gambla, D.O., chief medical officer at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. “We are excited to extend these benefits to our entire physician population by standardizing all communication on Imprivata Cortext, which we believe will greatly improve physician satisfaction, increase efficiency and, most importantly, enhance the quality of patient care.” With Imprivata Cortext, Beaufort Memorial will improve communications and care coordination while addressing the inefficiencies of pagers and other outdated technologies for a number of different clinical workflows, including: Code STEMI—When a catheterization lab is activated, the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) team must be notified and mobilized as quickly as possible. Prior to implementing Imprivata Cortext, this required numerous pages to the PCI team members, waiting for callbacks and creating delays in organizing the next steps for care. Using the Imprivata Cortext group messaging functionality, an alert can be sent via secure text message to the entire PCI team simultaneously, which significantly improves Code STEMI response times and care coordination. Radiology—Prior to using Imprivata Cortext, when a report was ready, radiologists would call or page specialists, who would then have to locate an available workstation to access the electronic health record to view the medical image and the corresponding radiology report. Using Imprivata Cortext, radiologists can more quickly alert attending physicians that the requested radiology reports are available, which improves efficiency and enhances patient satisfaction. Anesthesiology—Anesthesiologists are highly mobile, moving between operating rooms and catheterization labs. Imprivata Cortext enables them to receive secure text messages that include not only current medications and recent lab results that could create a patient safety issue, but also updates about when they can expect patients to be prepped for surgery and administration of anesthesia. “Our clinical staff has been extremely impressed with the functionality and ease-of-use of Imprivata Cortext, and it speaks volumes that clinical leadership—and not IT—made the decision to move away from pagers and standardize all physician communication on Imprivata Cortext,” said Edward Ricks, VP and CIO at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. “From an IT perspective, Imprivata Cortext gives us an easy-to-manage, cost-effective communication solution that also maintains compliance with HIPAA and security regulations. It also gives us a comprehensive solution for replacing costly, inefficient technologies, and in the past year, we have eliminated about half the pagers in the hospital.” “Beaufort Memorial's decision to replace pagers with Imprivata Cortext as its standard solution for provider communications reflects the clinical need for more efficient technologies to increase workflow efficiency and improve care coordination,” said Ed Gaudet, general manager of the Imprivata Cortext Products Group. “Imprivata Cortext is designed specifically for healthcare to meet the workflow challenges that care providers face every day, providing healthcare organizations with a secure communications platform that improves efficiency, meets compliance and security requirements and addresses inefficiencies caused by pagers and other outdated systems.” According to the Imprivata Report on the Economic Impact of Inefficient Communications in Healthcare, more than 50 percent of the time it takes to complete patient admissions, coordinate emergency response teams and patient transfers is wasted due to inefficient communication, costing the average U.S. hospital about $1.75 million annually. The study also finds that about half this wasted time could be reclaimed using secure text messaging, saving about $918,000 per hospital, per year.