Florida Hospital Carrollwood Elevates Health Care with New Patient Safety Standard

On Sunday, Florida Hospital Carrollwood reached a milestone in patient safety and efficiency of care.

Implementing Computerized Physician/Provider Order Entry (CPOE) means that physicians now place their own orders directly into an electronic medical record, eliminating paper, the chance for errors and decreasing the amount of time that used to take place between the physician order and actual patient care.

CPOE means that nurses and other clinical providers can spend less time interpreting physician intent and more time focusing directly on the patient and delivering safer and more standard levels of care.

With the launch of its CPOE and EMR systems with bar-code scanning, Florida Hospital Carrollwood is at the forefront of new medical technology designed to improve patient safety. It now ranks in the top 5.5 percent of the nation’s hospitals for having a fully integrated electronic medical records system, including CPOE and medication bar-code scanning.

At the same time as CPOE deployment, Florida Hospital Carrollwood also went live on technology that now connects it to the entire Adventist Health System, providing patients with healthcare resources available through all of its 43 hospitals; 22 are part of the Florida Hospital organization.

Brinsley Lewis, CEO, Florida Hospital Carrollwood, said this will result in broad clinical care improvements, a reduction in adverse drug effects, less time spent clarifying medication and treatment orders and changes in physician behavior, all resulting in improved patient care.

“There is no reason for a patient to go anywhere else for their healthcare needs,” said Lewis. “Our CPOE technology is among the most advanced in the country today, helping to ensure the safest and most accurate care and treatment available. If care cannot be provided at Florida Hospital Carrollwood or among our other hospitals within the Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Division, we have access to world-renowned hospitals and physicians throughout our system to provide diagnoses, treatment and procedures."

Added Brinsley: "In addition to the compassionate care we are already known for, our patients can have confidence that we are meeting our commitment to safety. Our physicians can now be confident that they are providing safer and even more accurate care to their patients in our Hospital."

Dr.  Ajay Patel, a general surgeon at Florida Hospital Carrollwood, said, “As a physician, I now have tools in place to help me provide healthcare to an even higher standard to my patients. CPOE helps put evidence-based medicine in practice, which means better and more efficient care for my patients”.