Mission Health Selects PeraHealth To Enhance Clinical Surveillance, Patient Safety

Asheville, N.C.-based Mission will integrate PeraHealth’s suite of clinical surveillance solutions into its existing enterprise data warehouse and its Cerner electronic medical record (EMR) system, helping care teams visualize a full picture of patient condition. The software will also be used at the 763-bed Mission Hospital to remotely monitor patients and support bed management across the health system’s five other hospitals located throughout western North Carolina.

“Our partnership with PeraHealth further demonstrates our commitment to providing fully integrated patient care that improves the health of the people and communities we serve,” said Ronald A. Paulus, M.D., president and CEO at Mission, the only health system in the nation named to Truven Health Analytics’ Top 15 Health Systems list four years in a row (2012-2015).

Powered by the Rothman Index, a disease-agnostic measure of patient condition used to predict patient readmission and mortality risk, PeraHealth software pulls data from all major EMR systems. The data is automatically translated into an Index score that’s presented in color-coded graphs computed upon admission and trended across the entire episode of care. The Rothman Index is validated by 18 peer-reviewed publications, including a recent article detailing how its use by a nurse rapid response team was linked to a 30 percent mortality reduction.

“Providing clinicians with innovative, analytics-driven resources to help deliver the right care, in the right place, at the right time is essential in today’s healthcare environment,” said Dr. Chris DeRienzo, Chief Patient Safety Officer at Mission Health. “We believe our partnership with PeraHealth will enhance communication among caregivers, especially during care transitions, and deliver new methods of reducing preventable harm to our patients through machine learning and predictive analytics.”

Patients frequently exhibit subtle warning signs in the hours and days before experiencing life-threatening health problems. Considering the average five-day hospital stay includes at least 24 patient handoffs, these signs can easily be missed during department transfers and shift changes, increasing the potential for unnecessary patient harm and costs.

“Detecting potential patient deterioration is extremely challenging for any care team,” said PeraHealth CEO Stephanie Alexander. “By clearly trending a full picture of patient condition in real-time, PeraHealth solutions alert clinicians earlier to subtle health issues, which can increase the likelihood of successful intervention. We are honored to partner with Mission Health to support their use of innovative analytics to provide high value patient care.”