Cancer Treatment Centers of America has opened the nation's first all-digital cancer hospital in Goodyear, Ariz.

The 213,000-square-foot CTCA at Western Regional Medical Center (Western), the fourth hospital in the CTCA network, extends the comprehensive electronic health record system launched by CTCA last year.

The CTCA EHR is designed specifically to support the patient-centered care model.

"Western is the first cancer hospital in the nation to offer a fully digital environment," said Edgar D. Staren, MD, senior vice president for clinical affairs and chief medical officer at CTCA. "Our other three hospitals in suburban Chicago, Philadelphia and Tulsa (Okla.) are rapidly approaching fully digital status as well."

Staren said CTCA executives and medical personnel view healthcare IT as a key enabler to improving patient care.

"We are committed to promoting a clinical culture that maximizes the value of EHRs to benefit patient care," he said.

Fully "wired" from the ground up, Western opened its doors in December with a fully electronic health record, all systems integrated into the core EHR and all providers able to contribute to the continuity of care document. The implementation meets the criteria for State 7, the highest level of automation set forth by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics EMR Adoption Model(SM).

"Our vision is very simple - all IT applications and medical equipment will be integrated through the Internet Protocol (IP) backbone," said Chad Eckes, chief information officer at CTCA. "This level of automation allows all clinicians access to the patient's information, when and where they need it. Our vision also extends externally to include personal health records, integration with external physicians and interaction with providers."

At CTCA hospitals, electronic health records are part of a culture of continuous process improvement that focuses on the individual needs of cancer patients and their families, including quality care and safety, operational and communications efficiency and data collection and analysis, Eckes said.

"At CTCA, doctors and other clinicians had my information right at hand," said Cindy Nelson, a resident of Prescott, Ariz., who travels to Western for treatment. "The admissions process was not drawn out, and I didn't feel the stress and anxiety associated with long wait times for test results and treatment plans."

"Western is part of a small population reaching a fully electronic health record," said David Veillette, president and CEO of CTCA at Western Regional Medical Center. "The EHR is one part of our comprehensive IT platform designed to maximize patient care."

He said cancer patients would benefit from greater efficiency created by real-time access to patient data, better communication across departments, faster development of treatment plans, fewer transcription errors and reduced turnaround times for lab orders and results.