Beauregard Memorial Hospital running Medsphere's OpenVistA EHR system receives Stage 1 'Meaningful Use' reimbursement

Carlsbad, CA, and DeRidder, LA—Medsphere Systems Corporation and Beauregard Memorial Hospital today announced that Beauregard has received federal reimbursement for the licensing of Medsphere’s OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR). The payment of Stage One Meaningful Use funds to the DeRidder, Louisiana, hospital covers five-year total licensing costs for the OpenVista EHR. The affordability of OpenVista will enable Beauregard to use additional federal funds received for subsequent stages of the Meaningful Use program on other hospital initiatives.

Indeed, the low cost of the OpenVista EHR was crucial in Beauregard’s decision to go the open-source route. A 60-bed community hospital in rural Louisiana, Beauregard is representative of the thousands of acute healthcare facilities nationwide that serve as safety-net providers for local residents and operate dangerously close to the financial margins. The OpenVista EHR, derived from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs much lauded VistA system, had great appeal to Beauregard because it is proven effective across the continuum of patient care. 

“Beauregard Memorial Hospital and CEO Ted Badger have been great OpenVista EHR adoption partners, and Medsphere offers both congratulations and thanks for this significant achievement,” said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald. “Local economic challenges often have dramatic impact on access to affordable, quality healthcare. Beauregard Memorial is demonstrating that affordable options exist, that they can improve care, and that they don’t require the cost or level of risk associated with proprietary technologies.”

As a crucial source of acute care for both Vernon and Beauregard parishes, Beauregard provides a range of primary healthcare services, including complete surgical procedures; labor, delivery and recovery; pediatrics; cardiac rehabilitation; chemotherapy; and diet and nutrition. Recognized by the Joint Commission, Beauregard already boasts a very low rate—in most cases zero—of hospital acquired conditions such as bedsores and catheter blood infections.

“Beauregard has always been intently focused on progressive improvements in patient care, and the OpenVista open source EHR gives us the electronic tool we need to push care quality to the next level,” said Beauregard CEO Ted Badger. “Our clinicians have embraced this easily adoptable and flexible electronic health record, and they understand that we could not have implemented any system at all if expensive traditional EHRs were our only option. Medsphere and the OpenVista EHR provided us with an opportunity where few existed, and we anticipate moving forward successfully as partners.”

Beauregard Memorial joins other Medsphere hospital partners who have received federal stimulus funds. Most recently, New Jersey’s Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center received an initial federal reimbursement large enough to cover the entire five-year cost of OpenVista. In late 2011, California’s Kern Medical Center received more than $5 million from the federal government, with in excess of $11 million expected in total. Earlier, Texas’s Midland Memorial Hospital received $3.3 million of more than $7 million expected over the life of the Meaningful Use program. Hoboken University Medical Center, an MHMC neighbor, last year received about $3 million of an estimated $8 million in total federal reimbursement.

According to statistics provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), slightly less than 16 percent of all U.S. hospitals have met Meaningful Use requirements and received stimulus funds. As one of a select group of hospitals that have received federal reimbursement, Beauregard Memorial Hospital has demonstrated what a community hospital can cost-effectively accomplish with the right system, partners and commitment.

About Medsphere and OpenVista

Founded in 2002 and based in Carlsbad, Calif., Medsphere Systems Corporation is an award-winning organization of clinical and technology professionals working to make quality health IT solutions accessible to organizations of virtually any size, shape or budget. Medsphere’s OpenVista® is a portfolio of clinical support products and professional services that leverages an electronic health record (EHR) system developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This VistA EHR is widely credited with helping transform the VA into the nation's most efficient and clinically effective healthcare organization. OpenVista, the most fully commercialized VistA offspring, is a responsible reapplication of the VA’s $8.5 billion investment, which recent studies show have yielded $3.09 billion in benefits, primarily from the near elimination of medication administration issues and duplicate testing.  

Medsphere’s subscription-based pricing model enables hospital, clinic and integrated delivery network customers to pay for OpenVista from their operating budget with no upfront costs or back-end balloon payments. Expert implementation and other services facilitate fluid and rapid transition to a paperless clinical environment focusing on best practices and evidence-based medicine in six to nine months. Medsphere also actively nurtures the Healthcare Open Source Ecosystem, a global community of customers, partners, developers and other online collaborators who drive OpenVista innovation, and provide a parallel development and support structure.