BridgeHead Software, a leader in healthcare data management, today announced BridgeHead’s Enablement Service for MEDITECH View-Only EMR (VOEMR), a unique methodology that helps hospitals to avoid disruption during a MEDITECH application upgrade. Hospitals working with the BridgeHead Healthcare Data Management (HDM) Solution across EMEA are enabled to work with MEDITECH VOEMR to assist in their upgrade process.

BridgeHead collaborated with MEDITECH to develop the VOEMR capability, and is unique in being able to provide this upgrade service. BridgeHead’s expert services team is available to assist hospitals in their use of BridgeHead’s software to create the read-only database used during MEDITECH upgrades and thereby continue hospital operations throughout the process. MEDITECH encourages hospitals to update their systems with each product release in order to prevent variations between its releases.

“As part of its ongoing commitment to MEDITECH, BridgeHead worked closely with them to perfect the VOEMR approach and best practice. As a result, BridgeHead’s ISB/IDR solution now works in tandem with the MEDITECH application to facilitate these reduced impact EMR upgrades,” said Tony Cotterill, Chief Product Officer at BridgeHead Software. “BridgeHead has a long experience in working with hospitals to support them in creating copies of the EMR database for data protection. This was a logical extension to that service.”

BridgeHead’s Enablement Service for MEDITECH VOEMR will be rolled out in the UK and across EMEA effective immediately. The service has already piloted successfully in the US at the Hilo Medical Center and the healthcare organisation now anticipates using it on an on-going basis for the two to three VOEMR upgrades it performs every year. Finding ways to avoid downtime is a priority for Hilo Medical Center, which depends on MEDITECH HCIS to serve 42,000 patients annually in its 24-hour care facility.