AnyWare Group's ROAM helps Memorial Medical Center of West Michigan expedite sign-off of patient records

Released on: April 29, 2009, 4:10 am
Author: AnyWare Group
Industry: Healthcare

Radiologists, physicians and managers can access hospital systems from anywhere.

Toronto, ON, April 30, 2009 – With doctors spread across 4 rural counties, Memorial Medical Center of West Michigan has implemented AnyWare Group's ROAM (Role Oriented Access Management) as the remote access platform to deliver their medical systems and applications, leading to more timely adherence to the hospital’s “sign-off” policy.

All hospitals depend on physicians and radiologists to promptly “sign-off” on patient records – but it is challenging to encourage and sustain compliance when physicians are spread out over a wide rural area like Western Michigan. With ROAM, healthcare providers can access internal hospital systems, check patient records and sign-off reports, from home or in a distant office, improving the effectiveness, and lifestyles, of physicians, administrators and IT staff – who might otherwise be forced to stay overtime in the hospital.

“A high level of complexity can discourage consistent adherence to the “sign-off” policy,” said Sue Luskin, IS Supervisor at MMCWM. “ROAM is so intuitive, it's easy to use right away and our physicians and staff took to it immediately.”

Sue Luskin recently received an email sent by Lynn S. McCurdy, D.O., a radiologist. Dr. McCurdy wrote:

“I just used ROAM to sign 28 reports (which were not transcribed yet when I left the hospital at 7:30 last night). It worked beautifully; in fact, much more smoothly than when I was editing and signing reports in house (perhaps because both I and the transcriptionist were busily accessing the list). Next time I won't stay late while the weather is deteriorating, knowing I can sign things from the safety of my home.”

Memorial Medical also chose ROAM because it is “clientless” – so specialists in distant cities can be provided with a secure personalized portal that restricts access to only the systems and information they need, based on role, within minutes. Rural hospitals often rely on larger urban hospitals for consultations from on-call specialists, especially in emergency situations. Remote access systems that take days to add a new user, or require a high level of technical support for end users, are not well suited for this situation.

“We recently heard from a consulting radiologist from a large urban hospital who had provided a diagnosis for one of our emergency patients,” said Sue Luskin. “He said that consulting to Memorial Medical was such a wonderful experience – that we could set him up with a new temporary user account immediately and, within minutes, he was reviewing images and dictating his diagnosis. He was very impressed with the ease with which ROAM had made records available.”

Prior to introducing ROAM, Memorial Medical provided access to their HIS through IPsec VPN, which required that IT staff either burn and mail out a CD or visit distant offices and homes to install a client on each of the personal computers belonging to authorized users on the network. It was very time consuming for IT staff and tends to act as a disincentive to granting remote access to new users.

“We at AnyWare Group are very excited to be working with Memorial Medical on this important initiative that truly highlights the unique capabilities of the ROAM Platform,” said Robert Lalonde, CEO of AnyWare Group Inc. “By providing authorized physicians, clinicians and managers with a single point of access to hospital systems and applications, ROAM is helping Memorial Medical improve the work life and efficiency of physicians and staff.”

About Memorial Medical Center of West Michigan
Headquartered in the town of Ludington, Michigan, an area known for its beautiful beaches, spectacular sunsets and numerous parks, Memorial Medical Center of West Michigan serves a community spread out over 4 rural counties, with over 500 employees, including those working in a satellite primary care facility in a neighboring county.

About AnyWare Group
AnyWare Group provides remote access solutions designed to meet the needs of hospitals and healthcare organizations. AnyWare Group's award-winning ROAM Platform enables clientless remote access to all applications from any device (PCs and Macs) without requiring the management of users' computers. Through the ROAM portal, organizations present all relevant applications to authorized users, when and where required.

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For more information:

Wayne Chamberlain
AnyWare Group
506-643-6612
wayne.chamberlain@anywaregroup.com