Susquehanna Health Partners With Summit Healthcare To Address System Downtime

Three Facility Health System Selects Summit Downtime Reporting System for Business Continuity

Susquehanna Health, a health system that includes three affiliate hospitals in rural north-central Pennsylvania, has adopted Summit Healthcare's Downtime Reporting System (DRS) to meet its business continuity needs and the data protection requirements that come alongside disaster recovery efforts. With 228 licensed acute beds, the health system serves approximately 13,000 inpatients each year. The Summit Downtime Reporting System will ensure access to critical patient data in the event of a Siemens HCIS or network downtime.

"The healthcare industry's increasing dependence on electronic records systems is making business continuity and data loss prevention strategies critical for all providers," says Tim Schoener, Assistant Vice President of IT at Susquehanna Health. "After hearing how Summit Healthcare can help safeguard our patients' data, it wasn't difficult to settle on a decision to use the Summit DRS solution. Providing the best care possible is the most important goal of any IT investment. Ensuring that key data is constantly available, especially during a system downtime disaster, is essential to enabling doctors to give their best to patients."

Summit DRS can support business continuity strategies by providing both clinical and non-clinical users with a snapshot of key information regardless of whether the downtime is planned, unplanned or even the result of a natural disaster. Report generation and data capture tools provide the snapshots of critical data, while sophisticated data encryption and secure delivery tools protect information and give healthcare providers access to content. The DRS solution can be configured to work with all HCIS vendor systems including situations where the network is down.

"Summit Healthcare is pleased to partner with Susquehanna Health to support their business continuity needs and we look forward to continuing to provide technology options to the Siemens customer base," says Ted Rossi, CEO of Summit Healthcare. "With healthcare initiatives driving dependence on electronic data, there will be an ever growing need to be prepared up front to address system downtime. Summit DRS fills this need and more."

About Summit Healthcare
Summit Healthcare integrated technology offering provides the healthcare industry with a comprehensive toolset for integration, automation and business continuity needs and has quickly become the standard for streamlining efforts.

• Summit Express Connect - a robust, powerful interface engine with inherent mapping and filter capabilities. Seamlessly integrate your HCIS with 3rd party ancillary systems, HIE/RHIO, ACO or to meet MU objectives.
• Summit Provider Exchange- a scalable, secure solution that facilitates the integration of bi-directional patient data between the hospital and the EMR at the physician office or clinic.
• Summit Scripting Toolkit- a full-featured workflow and task automation tool that also provides the means to extract and parse data, and is often used when conventional (HL7) methods to deliver data are not available.
• Summit Downtime Reporting System- ensures continuous access to critical patient data for clinicians at all times, to ensure quality of care and operational continuity in the event of HCIS or network downtime.
• Summit InSync- the market leading solution for dictionary maintenance accomplished through a powerful extraction, analysis and update process that ensures dictionaries are synchronized from test to live and across multiple facilities or platforms.

For our healthcare clients that do not have the resources to develop and manage interfaces internally, Summit Healthcare offers Integration Outsourcing Services as part of a complete integration package.

About Summit Healthcare
Summit Healthcare is the choice of hospitals and providers who want to take full control of their healthcare systems integration and information management requirements. Since 1999, we have worked to provide the industry with the most flexible integration technology with complimentary tailored services and solutions. For more information, visit www.summit-healthcare.com.

About Susquehanna Health
Susquehanna Health is a three-hospital integrated health system including Divine Providence Hospital, Muncy Valley Hospital and Williamsport Regional Medical Center located in north central Pennsylvania. Serving patients from an 11-county region, Susquehanna Health is a healthcare leader and has been recognized at the national and state levels for quality of care. Susquehanna Health offers a wide array of services that include cancer treatment, heart and vascular care/heart surgery, neurosciences including neurosurgery, orthopedics, urology, OB/GYN, gastrointestinal services, behavioral health, physical rehabilitation, home care, long term care, assisted living and paramedic/ambulance services.

SOURCE: Summit Healthcare