March 2008

The first two months of 2008 resulted in many new developments at VitalHealth. We’re proud to inform you of an important agreement to create a “Rehabilitation EMR” for all the rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands. This makes the rehabilitation sector the first to standardize on a single EMR solution. Definitely a milestone! Next to that, VitalHealth signed a cooperation agreement with Pharmapartners (one of the largest HIS providers to family medicine practices in the Netherlands) to jointly offer integrated care network solutions. Also, together with our partner Diagnosis4Health, an initial 25 family medicine practices have been converted from the D4H ‘Diabetes Care Protocol’ to VitalHealth’s web-based ‘Vital for Diabetes’. Furthermore, we’ve made excellent progress with our projects at the Mayo Clinic in the United States. And last but not least, we are set to launch a new product: ‘Vital to Quit Smoking’, our third product release in less than 9 months time!

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.

Het VitalHealth Team
Maart 2008

VitalHealth selected by Revalidatie Nederland for Patient Record solution

The project group “Revalidatie EPD” (Rehabilitation EMR) concluded that the VitalHealth Platform is particularly suitable for the realization of the Rehabilitation EMR. A member meeting of Revalidatie Nederland (a national steering group spanning all rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands) endorsed this conclusion late January.

This agreement signifies an important breakthrough for VitalHealth, as it means that all 24 rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands will adopt the VitalHealth Platform. The Rehabilitation EMR project is a unique initiative in the Netherlands. The rehabilitation sector is the first healthcare sector in the Netherlands to adopt a joint approach and solution for creating and implementing an EMR solution.

The project is managed by the Revalidatie Nederland organization, with the goal to develop a single, standard EMR solution for the entire rehabilitation sector. The project itself received a 2nd place award in a national contest for IT projects with a social return. Visit www.revalidatie-epd.nl for additional information.

The functional design of the solution was the result of 8 months of cooperation between about 25 future users of the solution within 3 pilot sites. The realization of the project will start March 2008, with a planned availability to all rehabilitation centers in 2009.

Rehabilitation EMR in practice

Rehabilitation Center Groot Klimmendaal is the first in the Netherlands to create a rehabilitation EMR based on the VitalHealth Platform. In a testimonial, CEO Guido van der Logt describes his experiences with working together with VitalHealth to create this rehabilitation EMR. To read this testimonial, please click here: Testimonial Groot Klimmendaal.

First successful conversion of D4H Diabetes Care Protocol to Vital for Diabetes

Many family medicine practices in the Netherlands have been using the Diabetes Care Protocol solution by Diagnosis4Health. This group of practices expressed great interest in VitalHealth’s web-based Vital for Diabetes solution. To facilitate their needs in a most optimal way, VitalHealth and D4H together created an automated conversion from the Diabetes Care Protocol to Vital for Diabetes. After conversion, the user has access to the extensive functionality of Vital for Diabetes, such as referrals to authorized care givers in primary and secondary care, robust functionality for submission of cost declarations, powerful graphing capabilities and patient self-management.

A welcome additional benefit of the conversion is the fact that the recently released ‘Vital to Quit Smoking’ solution is based on the same VitalHealth platform, allowing users to make the first step to a true multi-disease management solution. Currently about 25 family medicine practices have been converted to the new solution, and have been using Vital for Diabetes to great satisfaction. VitalHealth congratulates these practices with their successful conversion!

If you are a Diabetes Care Protocol user and would like to know more about the conversion to this modern, user-friendly software, please contact Diagnosis4Health at +31(318)657840. For additional information about the solution, we invite you to download the Vital for Diabetes brochure.

Database of our partner D4H reached 50,000 diabetic patients

On March 5th 2008, a special occasion was celebrated with care givers Mrs. Bosboom, Mrs. Crohne, Dr. van Rijn (MD) and their patient. The occasion marked the 50,000th diabetic patient registered in the D4H database. This database is owned by the “Stichting Databeheer” (a foundation) and provides crucial data for comparison and benchmark reporting related to the quality of care.

Diagnosis4Health and VitalHealth Software together presented a check to be used for diabetes related projects. The received amount has already been allocated to good causes; half will be given to the National Diabetes Fund, the other half to a regional project that aims to equip many public locations with portable defibrillators, including training of volunteers how to use the equipment. This project will help provide faster emergency care in heart failure cases.

Continued progress at the Mayo Clinic

After a successful initial rollout of the Point of Care Decision Support solution at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (MN), significant progress has been made with ongoing projects. Since its rollout in September of 2007, the solution has been used for well over 40,000 patient visits. Last month specific data elements and decision support rules were added for CAD patients, along with several enhancements based on constructive user feedback.

Besides point of care decision support, a second project has entered the testing phase: a Population Management solution targeted initially at diabetic patients. This second solution actively reuses the rule set created for point of care decision support, together helping to optimize the quality of care. Over the next several months, the Population Management product will gradually be rolled out to eventually manage the entire population of diabetic patients for the various care teams in and around Rochester.

Alliance Agreement with NIPED

On December 24 2007, VitalHealth signed an agreement with the NDDO Institute for Prevention and Early Diagnostics (NIPED) to create a software solution for efficient prevention of diseases. NIPED uses health profile and early prevention techniques to bring a new health care approach to medical practices. This approach closely matches the VitalHealth vision that health care will improve with early detection and prevention of diseases. VitalHealth will model a solution that will facilitate the transfer of data between the various care giver roles in the screening process, provide task support to the individual roles as well as comprehensive process control. Current medical protocols will be used to automatically generate health profiles and treatment decision support. The inherent flexibility of the VitalHealth software models will accelerate the international adoption of the NIPED approach.

VitalHealth launches Vital to Quit Smoking

We are proud to inform you that our first lifestyle-application – Vital to Quit Smoking – will be launched shortly. With this addition to our portfolio of models we’re making an important step to make lifestyle issue an integrated component of the care process. Motivation and support to the person trying to quit are critical success factors, which is why VitalHealth created a solution specific to that effect. Vital to Quit Smoking offers support to both the person trying to quit as well as the lifestyle coach.

The application is primarily focused on supporting the effort required to quit. An integrated decision support system generates crucial coaching interactions, with advice based on the specific profile and history of the smoker. The first implementations of the solution are starting this month, making lifestyle management for the chronic smoker a true reality. Vital to Quit Smoking is the third health management solution to be released by VitalHealth in as little as nine months!

About VitalHealth

With offices in the Netherlands, the United States and India, VitalHealth Software (www.vitalhealthsoftware.com) was established as a joint venture between the Mayo Clinic (USA) and the Noaber Foundation(NL). VitalHealth develops innovative disease management solutions for integrated healthcare networks.

For additional information about VitalHealth Software or VitalHealth solutions, please contact Geert Mol via email: gmol@vitalhealthsoftware.com, or via telephone at +31 (318) 65-7730. We also invite you to visit our download page.

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