PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- North Dakota and western Minnesota residents will soon benefit from the first region-wide connected healthcare network being implemented by MeritCare. MeritCare, one of the leading wired hospitals in the United States, has selected Kryptiq Corp. to provide secure messaging and clinical workflow applications to their network of 691 providers. The Kryptiq solutions will interface with MeritCare's GE Healthcare's Centricity(R) Physician Office Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system and facilitate online patient scheduling, electronic delivery of lab results, online renewal of medications, and the sharing of patient data with other physicians in the region. This strategic initiative by MeritCare supports the plan developed by Dr. David Brailer, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, to create a nationwide electronic health record system and health information infrastructure.
MeritCare serves more than 1.5 million patients per year through its network of 6100 associates in 44 locations, across 250 miles. Over 5,000 MeritCare employees, including physicians and administrative staff, will now have access to Kryptiq's secure email, clinical messaging, and online health services solutions to improve the way healthcare information is communicated between systems and shared among physicians and patients across the entire care continuum.
"MeritCare fully embraces Dr. Brailer's strategic plan for bringing information to the point of care, connecting our physicians and hospitals with interoperable electronic health record systems, and providing our patients access to their medical records," commented Craig Hewitt, M.D., CIO of MeritCare. "With Kryptiq, we now have technology in place that can meet these objectives, adhere to emerging standards and be scalable to meet the needs of all our stakeholders from small physician practices to large health systems within and beyond the MeritCare network."
MeritCare will be deploying the following Kryptiq products:
-- ClinicalMessenger (TM) -- Kryptiq ClinicalMessenger directly integrates
secure messaging with MeritCare's existing electronic health record
systems to enable convenient electronic communication of patient
records wherever they are needed. With Clinical Messenger, MeritCare
will transition from relying on phones and fax machines to send patient
records, lab results, and referrals to using secure email for sharing
electronic records, improving the efficiency and the reliance of
clinical communications. ClinicalMessenger supports Dr. Bailer's
strategic plan for connecting physicians and hospitals with
interoperable health record systems.
-- CareCatalyst(TM) -- is a Web portal that integrates with back-end
clinical systems to streamline patient/clinic communications and give
patients round-the-clock access to online services including
appointment scheduling, referral requests, and prescription renewals.
Also included in the product is eForms, a web-based forms engine that
enables users to easily build structured questionnaires for collecting
patient information online. CareCatalyst supports Dr. Brailer's plan
for providing patients access to their medical records
-- RosettaStone(TM) Gateway -- integrates secure email with existing
clinical applications to provide a platform for interoperability and
connectivity that enables protected health information to be shared
securely wherever it is needed. By connecting directly to MeritCare's
Centricity EMR, the RosettaStone Gateway enables provider-to-provider
electronic communications and secure provider-patient interactions.
"MeritCare is taking a much needed leadership role in defining how a connected healthcare system should come together," said Luis Machuca, chief executive officer of Kryptiq. "By taking a bottoms-up approach to establishing connectivity across the region, MeritCare is taking the needed first step to creating a network that will serve the needs of their geographically dispersed community."
The Kryptiq solutions will be rolled out to the MeritCare network within North Dakota throughout Q4 of 2004 with expansion to western Minnesota by Q1 of 2005.
About Kryptiq Corporation
Kryptiq provides secure messaging, clinical workflow automation and contract management solutions for streamlining healthcare communications among providers, patients, and payers. Kryptiq adds security and workflow components to the existing email infrastructure to enable trusted transport of health information across organizations and between users and databases. Kryptiq solves real business problems for customers such as Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield, Providence Health Systems and Michigan State University, by providing increased access to data and automating the movement of health information where and when it is needed. For more information, visit the company on the Web at http://www.kryptiq.com/.
Legal Notice: Kryptiq is either a trademark or registered trademark and the Kryptiq logo is a service mark of Kryptiq Corp. Product specifications are subject to change without notice. Microsoft Outlook is a trademark or registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and other countries. All other products are the trademark or registered trademark of their respective companies.
For more information, press only: Lisa MacKenzie MacKenzie Marketing Group lisam@mackenzie-marketing.com 503-225-0725
Kryptiq CorporationCONTACT: Lisa MacKenzie of MacKenzie Marketing Group, +1-503-225-0725,or lisam@mackenzie-marketing.com, for Kryptiq Corporation
Web site: http://www.kryptiq.com/
