Novo Innovations Announces Agreement With Palomar Pomerado Health

Novo software agents will enable Palomar Pomerado Health to provide electronic delivery of hospital data to affiliated physician practices

ALPHARETTA, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Novo Innovations, the leading healthcare provider of software-agent technologies to improve health information exchange, today announced an agreement with Palomar Pomerado Health (PPH) of San Diego, the largest public healthcare district in California.

“Palomar Pomerado Health conducted rigorous due diligence in its selection process, and we are proud that PPH selected the Novo system”

PPH will deploy Novo’s agent-based software, which will allow PPH to improve information exchange with their physician practices to lower costs and improve clinical care.

The Novo system satisfied a key PPH requirement through its capacity to improve information exchange with the widest number of physician-practice EMRs throughout the community. Moreover, Novo’s Internet-based “drop box” functionality will allow PPH to improve its data sharing with practices that do not have EMRs. In the first phase of the implementation, PPH will utilize the Novo system to offer practices comprehensive out-bound electronic results reporting, including face sheet data, transcriptions, radiology results, pathology results and lab results.

Providing an improved method of sharing data has been the leading request from affiliated physician practices for the last several years, according to Ben Kanter, M.D., chief of staff, Pomerado Hospital, and chief medical information officer, Palomar Pomerado Health. “Currently, we distribute results to offices by fax,” says Dr. Kanter. “Physicians are eager to receive data from PPH electronically in order to improve patient care, enhance office efficiency and decrease costs. The practices that will be serving as beta sites for the implementation are very excited by the potential of the new Novo system to solve many of their most pressing needs.”

Dr. Kanter adds, “PPH sees electronic interfaces with affiliated physicians as an important competitive advantage. We want to be as physician-friendly as possible by providing the requisite patient data to physicians as efficiently, quickly and easily as we can. Doing so will improve both patient and physician satisfaction, and the more satisfied our physicians are, the better their working relationship with our hospital district will be. Novo gives us a unique competitive edge in our marketplace.”

“Palomar Pomerado Health conducted rigorous due diligence in its selection process, and we are proud that PPH selected the Novo system,” says Robert Connely, CEO of Novo Innovations. “The Novo system will allow PPH to satisfy the needs of its affiliated physicians to share data easily and cost-effectively without requiring practices to alter their workflows.”

About Novo Innovations

Founded in 2003, Novo Innovations has pioneered a new approach to health information exchange. Novo’s approach is based on the use of intelligent software agents to provide workflow automation and system integration between hospitals, physicians and other providers in the healthcare community. Novo’s comprehensive service approach provides all of the necessary integration expertise and technical effort, enabling any hospital or health system to create a community exchange solution at a fraction of the time, cost and effort of other solutions. As Novo agents are deployed to address tactical interoperability challenges, they form the core of an information grid that will be able to address future strategic challenges. Novo has rapidly become a market leader, currently serving more than 250 hospital communities in the United States. Learn more at www.novoinnovations.com or call 1-888-325-NOVO.

About Palomar Pomerado Health

Palomar Pomerado Health, California’s largest public health district, is North County’s most comprehensive health-care delivery system, nationally recognized for clinical excellence in cardiac care, women’s services, cancer, orthopedics, trauma, rehabilitation and behavioral health services. As the largest employer in Inland North San Diego County, with more than 3,600 employees and 700 physicians, Palomar Pomerado Health was named San Diego County’s Best Place to Work in 2006. Facilities include Palomar Medical Center, Pomerado Hospital, Villa Pomerado, Palomar Continuing Care Center and the Jean McLaughlin Women’s Center. Please visit www.pph.org for more information on our comprehensive services and facilities.