Major Florida Children’s Hospital Gains Critical Visibility into Healthcare Services

The hospital has recently undertaken several major IT initiatives that impact all functions of the IT department. One of the most significant projects is an institution-wide rollout of a Cerner® Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system that connects and provides critical care collaboration between physicians, staff, and patients. The Cerner EMR solution also automates processes between departments such as emergency care, laboratory, surgery, radiology, and pharmacy. The new EMR system also includes a hospital-wide Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) system and Picture Archiving Communications System (PACS). The EMR system is cross integrated into a number of different applications such as Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems as well as the Clinical Decision Support (CDS) systems that transfer patient data between caregivers and are extremely critical to the hospital operations and patient care activities. Other applications and services that are vital to the operation of the hospital include Microsoft® Exchange®, Oracle®, and Lawson™ ERP systems. In addition, Voice over IP (VoIP) along with telemedicine video conferencing have become an increasingly important application for the hospital as they facilitate real-time consultation between medical specialists located on and off campus. The ability to provide always-on access to all of these systems is critical to the effective operation of hospital and patient care services.

With a staff of 3,000, including more than 650 attending physicians and 130 pediatric subspecialists, this major Florida children’s hospital is renowned for excellence in all aspects of pediatric medicine. The hospital has a number of pediatric specialty programs and has been consistently ranked among the best in the nation. The hospital is also home to a large pediatric nurses teaching program. Patient care services at the hospital focus on providing both patients and families with topnotch medical care, coupled with emotional, psychological, and educational support.The hospital provides comprehensive care and rehabilitation in all clinical areas for infants, children, and young adults and uses a multi-disciplinary team comprised of pediatric medical, surgical and rehabilitation specialists to evaluate, diagnose, and develop a systematic, comprehensive treatment plan for each child. The hospital also offers many unique, family-centered programs and services designed to help familiarize parents with hospital services and to make the entire experience less intimidating.