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Cegeka News

Nexuzhealth launches electronic patient record (EPR) at five more hospitals


2 February 2018

Nexuzhealth, the joint venture by UZ Leuven and Cegeka, announces that five more hospitals have joined its electronic patient record (EPR) project. With this announcement, nexuzhealth will have implemented its EPR system in 26 Flemish hospitals in the span of one year, which is half of all the hospitals in Flanders. The expansion is part of nexuzhealth’s commitment to further developing, implementing, and commercializing its EPR system.

Thanks to their partnerships with UZ Leuven, hospitals including AZ Groeninge, AZ Glorieux Ronse, OLV Aalst, AZ Sint-Lucas and Sint-Blasius Dendermonde have been using the nexuzhealth EPR for several years. In late 2017, the Algemeen Stedelijk Ziekenhuis Aalst – Geraardsbergen – Wetteren joined the implementation process along with another five medical facilities: Jessa Hasselt, Heilig Hart Tienen, Heilig Hart Mol, Revarte Antwerpen and Imeldaziekenhuis Bonheiden. In order to effectively implement the EPR, nexuzhealth continues to expand its team.

Gertie Delande, nexuzhealth CEO: “The market called for an affordable and broadly inclusive electronic patient record. Software alone is not enough to make a difference – a good approach to implementation and the right governance model are equally important. By combining Cegeka’s 20 years of experience in health-care solutions with UZ Leuven’s expertise and software, we have created a solid foundation for this successful partnership. We are pleased by the positive initial receptionof this new service organisation.”

Private cloud for hospitals

The EPR consolidates each patient’s medical information on a digital platform. All medical information – referral letters, test results, radiology imagery and details of treatment, admissions and medication – is available via a central database that is accessible to all users. The medical record follows the patient to the various nexuzhealth hospitals, which allows healthcare providers to share patient information effortlessly with each other. Healthcare providers can also cooperate more efficiently via the EPR, which helps themavoid expensive and time-consuming procedures such as repeating tests.

Besides healthcare providers, the EPR also benefits patients by providing a more transparent overview of their medical history. Patients have direct access to their records via the mynexuzhealth portal and the mobile app.

In 2015, Belgium’s Minister of Social Affairs and Health Maggie De Block formulated the e-Health action plan aimed at using innovation and digitalisation to increase access to healthcare. Nexuzhealth’s modern interface is a response to the Belgian federal government’s call to developing a more comprehensive healthcare landscape.

Bart Van den Bosch, nexuzhealth CIO: "Sharing the software and the database among a community of 26 hospitals not only makes transmural care much easier to achieve, it also helps us to profit from an economy of scale. Each function and connection only needs to be developed once, after which it is available for all of the hospitals to use. In effect, we serve as a private cloud for the hospitals, which means they no longer have to deal with system support, security and upgrades.”

Local anchoring

The success of nexuzhealth can be explained partly by its local anchoring. With more knowledge of the Belgian market than large international players, nexuzhealth is able to respond quickly to rapidly changing legislation.

In contrast to systems that require the separate installation of a system in each hospital, nexuzhealth has a single central database which stores data from all participating hospitals. As a result, medical staff need only consult a single record – an efficiency boost that will benefit patients.

After getting off to a promising start, nexuzhealth hopes to further consolidate and improve this year. Gertie Delande, nexuzhealth CEO: “We were able to launch a significant number of partnerships over the last year and now we will begin the implementation process. Furthermore, we plan to streamline system features to better suit the needs of individual hospitals. We will also consult with patient organisations in order to find out how we can further finetune our service.”

Nexuzhealth has also been nominated for the Belfius Smart Awards in the category for companies with revenue less than 10 million EUR. Belfius has noted that nexuzhealth is an innovative and creative initiative that can serve as a solution to current societal challenges. The winners will be announced on March 21.


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