Lakeland Regional Health System (LRHS) in St Joseph Michigan faced the same challenge many health systems face - a growing demand from physicians to improve the delivery of results to accommodate their newly installed Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems.

LRHS received just such a request in the form of a specific challenge from one of their most influential physician practices. The practice requested that LRHS provide electronic delivery of clinical results to their EMR that was scheduled to be installed in 30 days.

Lakeland turned to Novo Innovations to meet this challenge. “From the time we signed to purchase request it took less than two days to install the system. The practice was receiving laboratory results a few days later. Using Novo’s Healthcare Grid, we were able to deliver results to the practice weeks before their live date. That would not have been possible with any other approach” says Emil Gallay, CIO of LRHS.

The Novo software components were installed in just a few hours by the Novo team working with the technical resources from LRHS. McKesson Series HIS and the Misys Lab systems were "grid enabled" to automatically process lab results from LRHS and deliver them securely to the physician office and inserted directly into the EMR's HL7 interface. The time spent by the LHRS technical team to install the Novo Grid in the hospital data center and remote physician office, to interface the hospital information systems and the EMR, and to configure, test and go-live - totalled 14 hours.

Today, EMRs from vendors like GE, Greenway and others are being added to the LRHS grid. New reports and results are also being distributed over the Novo Grid including radiology, transcriptions, admission and discharge summaries and surgical notes.

The Novo Grid at Lakeland Regional Health System continues to prove the viability of this exciting new approach to EMR information exchange and interoperability.