Calgary Health Region, headquartered in Alberta, Canada, has partnered with Atlanta-based Eclipsys to activate the Eclipsys’ Sunrise Clinical Manager at all of its adult care facilities.

“The Sunrise Clinical Manager, an integrated clinical information system, was designed to improve care delivery and promise high rates of solution adoption,” says Tom Rosenal, medical director, clinical informatics, Calgary Health Region.

The Calgary Health Region engaged Eclipsys Consulting Group to co-develop an implementation strategy focused on achieving 100 percent computerized physician order entry (CPOE) within 18 months of activation.

“We knew from previous solutions that order entry had the capability of providing better care, but what was missing was ease of use,” Rosenal says. “Other solutions were not nearly as robust, and they didn’t have the same level of clinical decision support. We also didn’t have systems running at every site, so being comprehensive was important.” Because the Calgary Health Region has four large urban hospital sites, it wanted healthcare professionals to be able to use the system regardless of location. “If you blindfolded the physician and only showed them the Sunrise Clinical Manager system, they shouldn’t be able to tell which site they’re at,” says Rosenal.

“Only a very small number of software products in the healthcare arena support a region of our size and complexity. In fact there were only two or three, so we asked a variety of healthcare professionals including clinicians, nurses and allied health, and they concluded that the Eclipsys Sunrise Clinical Manager provided the best patient care,” says Rosenal.

According to Rosenal, the major benefit of the Sunrise Clinical Manager is that it supports patient care by allowing decision capture. “For example, a physician might order penicillin, in which they must specify the dose, method of delivery, and frequency. However, if they forget a critical component the system will remind them what information is missing,” Rosenal says. In addition, the system also provides clinical alerts for issues such as drug-drug reactions, allergies and dosage requirements.