CHIME Collaboration Award goes to Providence Health, GE and McKesson

Ann Arbor, MI, October 28, 2009 – An Oregon health system and two healthcare IT vendors who typically compete for customers worked closely together last year to develop an approach that seamlessly connected the vendors’ products and spared the system the cost and effort to install a replacement medical records system.


The effort, by Providence Health & Services, and the two vendors, GE Healthcare and McKesson Corporation, was recognized as the winner of the 2009 Collaboration Award at CHIME’s 2009 Fall Forum in Indian Wells, Calif.

CHIME Chair Joanne Sunquist and CHIME President and CEO Rich Correll presented CHIME’s 2009 Collaboration Award to Laureen O’Brien, CIO at Providence Health, and GE and McKesson.

In May 2008, Providence was looking for a way to share records in its inpatient and outpatient settings. The integrated delivery system believed it either had to replace its core clinical systems from GE and McKesson or find a way to connect them. Replacement would have required an investment of more than $230 million, would require reconnecting 124 interfaces, and would have disrupted patient care and business operations.

Connecting the GE and McKesson systems required new technology and an unprecedented level of cooperation between historic competitors and a key customer. The initial effort, which spanned the latter half of 2008, resulted in the creation of a non-proprietary architectural framework and a clinical workflow prototype that can be leveraged by other providers and vendors.

The Collaboration Award recognizes the best collaborative effort in an article co-written by a CHIME Foundation firm and a CHIME member. Criteria for the award require that the article have value for the healthcare IT/IS arena in terms of both the collaborative effort and the overall topic.

For more information about the Collaboration Award, visit www.cio-chime.org or call (734) 665-0000.

About CHIME

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 1,300 CIO members and 70 healthcare IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professionals and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve health and healthcare in the communities they serve.
For more information, please visit www.cio-chime.org.

Contact: Fred Bazzoli
Sr. Director of Communications, CHIME
(630) 485-5193
fbazzoli@cio-chime.org
www.cio-chime.org

UPDATED: 11/5/2009 2:14:57 PM