Fletcher Allen Health Care, a Vermont-based provider of health services to 850,000 citizens, has deployed a new clinical workflow solution in an effort to increase access to patient information from different systems.

Fusionfx, a product of the Carefx Corporation of Scottsdale, Ariz.,, is designed to streamline clinician interactions with patient health data. Fletcher Allen Health Care officials say they expect to improve their quality of care by using this solution to close gaps between different systems, allowing more consistent access to clinical information.

"The driving force behind selecting Carefx was our recent EPIC EHR implementation, which fundamentally changed the way we practiced medicine at the hospital," said Charles Podesta, Fletcher Allen's CIO. "Although our clinical and administrative staff would be utilizing the Epic EHR system 24/7, there were still key clinical systems including PACS, Operating Room, Pre-Op and others that needed to interoperate with EPIC."

With the implementation of Fusionfx, Fletcher Allen officials said, these systems will integrate with Epic, creating a better experience for both patient and clinician.

Howard Schapiro, chairman of the anesthesiology department at Fletcher Allen, wants patient data readily available to clinicians in a format that's intuitive and gives rapid access to the user. Schapiro was the catalyst for implementing a clinical workflow management system and the proponent behind deploying Fusionfx.

"The ability to log into EPIC and move immediately to the patient's order page has been positively received by our OR professionals," said Schapiro. Clinicians at Fletcher Allen, he said, now may access schedules for surgical procedures and view the availability of surgical instrumentation.

"Fletcher Allen selected Carefx over its competitor largely for its technology, application development and use of industry standards, including Microsoft.Net," added Podesta. "Their products are extremely robust and stable, and easy to install and manage."