King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre (KFSH&RC)is one of our recipients of this years Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Davies Award of Excellence and is in the top 100 list of companies globally to reap this award. KFSH&RC is the first HIMSS Davies Award winner in the Kingdom and the first outside of North America to reach HIMSS Stage 7 Ambulatory and HIMSS Stage 6 Analytics Maturity.

The HIMSS Davies Award acknowledges extraordinary achievements of organizations that have utilized health IT to significantly enhance patient consequences via sharing evidence-driven best practices on implementation strategies, workflow design, change management and patient engagement.

The HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence for KFSH&RC Riyadh & Jeddah indicates the maturity and interoperability of our Integrated Clinical Information System (ICIS) since its inception more than 17 years ago, stated Majed Al Fayyad, MD, MMM, Chief Executive Officer of KFSH&RC. To attain this stage of excellence and, more importantly, to share our lessons with the wider healthcare community is really an enterprise-wide success and speaks to the dedication, utilization and adoption of technology by our staff.

KFSH&RC manages three amenities in the country and plays the role of a tertiary service provider for specialized medicine services, such as oncology, cardiology, transplant and fertility with about one million outpatient visits every year. Since the 2002 implementation of ICIS with the Cerner Millennium electronic health record (EHR), KFSH&RC has realized several long-term upgrades that stood out to the HIMSS selection committee.

To quantify the benefits of ICIS, KFSH&RC performed detailed studies of their influenza vaccine, breast & colon cancer screening and the Smart Tech to Smart Care using Cerner Smart Room TM project. These studies showed upgrades to patient and staff experiences and communications, as well as smarter methods to interact patients in their health journey.

Influenza vaccine

During Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage, about three million pilgrims from throughout the globe visit Makkah in addition to the 18 million that visit all through the rest of the year. With the increasing pandemics of influenza occurring globally since 2010 (including H1N1, MERs- CoV, etc.), KFSH&RC, the gateway to Makkah, targeted elevated vaccination and testing for influenza.

KFSH&RC utilized Cerners Health Maintenance module, section of the KFSH&RC EHR system, to remind clinicians of patients due for influenza vaccination. To extend compliance, these reminders have been the first pieces of facts presented to clinicians inside their workflow and have been additionally pushed directly to patients via their patient portal as preventative care.

KFSH&RC has sustained improved volumes of influenza vaccinations administered by an increase of more than300% on average1. In addition, KFSH&RC has multiplied testing for influenza via more than seven times and considerably increased the volume of prescriptions to treat affected patients.

Breast & colon cancer screening

Colon cancer and breast cancer are viewed the number one malignancy for males and females, respectively in Saudi Arabia. Cerners Health Maintenance module reminds clinicians of patients due for cancer screening directly in their workflow. In addition, as preventative care, screening reminders are pushed directly to patients through their patient portal.

KFSH&RC notably elevated proactive testing of patients for these cancers to assist with early detection. These interventions yielded massive increases in early stage cancer detection. For example, the quantity of fecal occult blood test ordered from 2014-2018 rose 59%.Similarly, the volume of mammogram test orders rose 30% over the same period, in contrast to baseline data. The number of advantageous results via this increased screening rose 267% for colon cancer and 600% for breast cancer.

Smart Tech to Smart Care

The leadership crew of the King Abdullah Center for Oncology & Liver Disease (KACOLD), part of KFSH&RC, sought to radically change the delivery of patient care and address problems associated to staff-to-staff and patient-to-staff communication to improve an elevated experience with patients at the center.

KFSH&RC determined to enhance communication to improve the timeliness of care delivery, increase care crew communication and enhance existing levels of medical decision support. This ultimately led to an increase in patient safety, decrease in number of manual interventions and manpower, as well as decrease of duration of stay for patients.

The KFSH&RC crew labored with Cerner to design and install the Cerner Smart Room, leveraging a huge quantity of new solutions and equipment unique to both the region and the world. KFSH&RC lowered average duration of stay by approximately 9% through the interoperability of these new solutions with the Cerner Smart Room, alongside with evidence-based guidelines and clinical pathways to enhance results and communication.

In addition, in contrast to baseline measures for the same unit, patient satisfaction rating extended by 28% for environmental cleanliness,25% for pain management, 12% for nurse communication and 14% for doctor communication (as reported via standardized patient perception studies).In addition, the volume of data-entry blunders was decreased by 99% via automation of essential signs documentation. This automation saved on average 140 minutes of staff time per patient per day in the critical care units and 58 minutes of staff time per patient per day in non-critical care units.

This recognition by HIMSS highlights the positive paradigm shift that technology can now cause in healthcare. Healthcare can no longer operate as a car workshop due to the fact technology has begun to put pressure on quality, cost and access as established by this digital transformation at KFSH&RC, stated Osama Al Swailem, MD, MA, Chief Information Officer at KFSH&RC. The healthcare revolution has begun!

King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre has been a long-time Cerner client and we congratulate them on their latest award for attaining the HIMSS Davies Award. This level of accomplishment does not come without many years of hard work, adoption and determination, stated Alaa Adel, Managing Director, Cerner Middle East and Africa. We are proud that Cerner is one of the key aspects that helped KFSH& RC receive such an honor and we wish them many more successes in the future.