Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is expanding its PatientKeeper platform to improve capacity for its health information exchange.

“Our physicians will be using our existing, well adopted PatientKeeper Portal to provide the best care possible for the patients in our community, and I am particularly excited to implement a cost effective health information exchange solution,” said Tim Charles, CEO of the 445-bed hospital. “Leveraging existing technology and improving physicians’ access to key patient information helps us contribute to keeping overall healthcare costs down.”

By increasing the level of health information exchange between the hospital’s PaitentKeeper Physician Information System – developed by Boston-based Patientkeeper, Inc., – and its Intergy EHR ambulatory electronic health record system, developed by Sage Software Healthcare, officials at Mercy look to improve access to patient data for physicians and patients. Physicians and other clinical staff at the hospital will have access to inpatient and outpatient records to optimize patient care and improve efficiency, officials said.

Mercy will be expanding the PatientKeeper platform by implementing the PatientKeeper Physician Practices Connector. Coupled with the hospital’s EHR, this is designed to provide clinicians access to inpatient and outpatient information through one integrated system. Healthcare providers hope to leverage HIE functionality to access a chronological view of a patient’s medical history.

“As a physician, my primary goal is to treat every patient with the most up to date information available, to make the most informed decisions about the patient’s care,” said Timothy Quinn, president of MercyCare Community Physicians. “This integration allows me and my partners to have the most up-to-date information available.”

“This provides our Emergency Department better access to current primary care information, which allows us to treat patients more effectively and efficiently," said Matthew Aucutt, medical director of Mercy’s Emergency Department.