Hospitals partner in record sharing

Hospitals partner in record sharing: "A visit to the doctor or local emergency room can be stressful enough. Consider having to do that when you're out of town, where the doctor doesn't know you or your medical past.
Concerns about such situations aren't limited to patients.
'Doctors live in terror of missing something that matters to the patient,' said Jim Walker, chief medical information officer for Geisinger Health System.
To alleviate the problems that can result from those situations, a group of 24 community hospitals from across central and eastern Pennsylvania began Wednesday an initiative to create a system for sharing electronic patient records between the hospitals."

Teges software helps automate doctors' rounds

Teges software helps automate doctors' rounds: "After a decade of working for IBM in sales and marketing, Christine White was tired of wondering whether she would lose her job in the next round of layoffs. White joined a few small companies, but after four years, she realized she really wanted her own business.

The idea for the company she would eventually start came from a casual conversation with one of her son's colleagues at Miami Children's Hospital. Dr. Redmond Burke, chief of cardiac surgery, was complaining about how difficult it was to keep track of patient information in the intensive care unit because most of the records were scattered throughout various computer systems.

'I started thinking about a way to put all that information in one place,' said White. 'I started talking to different doctors about how they would like to see it done.'

In 2001, she founded Teges Corp. in Coral Gables, hired software developers and began work, with input from doctors. After months of development, she began marketing the company's signature software, iRounds, to local hospitals. The Web-based software allows doctors and nurses to input and access patient information from any device connected to the Internet. To protect patient privacy, the information is encrypted, much like online bank records."