Microsoft Azyxxi One Year Later; 21 hospitals and counting

bcrounse — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:00:00 GMT

A little more than a year ago, I introduced Channel 10 readers to Azyxxi, Microsoft's unified health enterprise platform solution. I also recorded an audio-cast with executives from our Health Solutions Group. A few months ago, I updated you with another audio-cast featuring one of Azyxxi's early adopter customers, New York Presbyterian Hospital. Today, Microsoft is announcing the addition of yet another well known hospital system to the growing list of Azyxxi customers; Novant Health.

Novant will implement Azyxxi throughout the enterprise, initially focusing on intensive care units and emergency departments and then expanding throughout its eight acute care hospitals and an 800-physician medical group. With Novant and NY Presbyterian, early Azyxxi adopters now include 21 different hospitals at academic medical centers such as Johns Hopkins Health System; large health systems such as MedStar Health; and the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange, which will eventually tie together 25 different hospitals in Southeastern Wisconsin.

As we discussed in my most recent audio-cast, New York Presbyterian Hospital and its associated network is using Azyxxi to unify its existing and legacy information systems to create broad accessibility of its vast quantities of information. New York Presbyterian's senior vice president and CIO, Aurelia Boyer says, “As we’ve automated more and more of the processes within the hospital and created more electronic data sources, our ability to mine and utilize that data is becoming more of a priority. Making the data from different systems available in a way that makes good management, clinical and quality sense takes a lot of effort, and is a major goal for an institution like ours. Giving people in the hospital ready access to different kinds of data is priceless to us.”

Whereas New York Presbyterian is looking at Azyxxi as an administrative tool to guide organizational decisions, Novant Health is working to implement Azyxxi in support of its clinical operations. “I’ve seen estimates that say a physician spends most of his or her time collecting information about the patient before they deliver the care,” says Rich McKnight, Novant’s CIO. “Our goal is to dramatically reduce the amount of time in information gathering, and increase the amount of time in taking care of the patient.”

It has been my personal pleasure to attend many Azyxxi customer briefings with executives from our Health Solutions Group. I can tell you that the solution is generating lots of excitement in the industry. I also remember very well sitting with a senior finance executive at MedStar Health in Washington, D.C., as he was extolling the virtues of Azyxxi for revenue cycle enhancement and recovery. The system gave Washington Hospital visibility to millions of dollars in high-value procedures and tests that were being improperly coded and therefore not collected by the hospital; millions of dollars that can now be spent delivering care to patients.

As Azyxxi liberates healthcare data from the constraints of silos and systems that don't "talk" to one another, I can only imagine the implications for providing cost and quality transparency in the industry, and our potential to improve the efficacy and efficiency of the care being provided by clinicians.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation

Entries tagged with novant health - Channel 10

Microsoft Azyxxi One Year Later; 21 hospitals and counting