Photo: Southwest General Health Center
The National Cancer Institute predicts nearly 40% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes. Ohio s Southwest General Health Center is working to revolutionize cancer care through improved chemotherapy infusion efficiency, after transitioning from paper records to Cerner s electronic health record technology.
THE PROBLEM The biggest challenge we faced before turning to Cerner was that some of our records were still on paper, said Deborah Harwood, RN, director of oncology services at Southwest General Health Center. This presented a challenge of quickly locating patient information across a multidisciplinary team. Information such as registration documents, patient schedules, and lab and pharmacy orders were loose documents needing to be filed into the chart, making for inefficient workflows and in some cases delayed information to care teams.