DEAL!

Client: Inova Health System, Fairfax, VA.

Services: Emergency department information system.

Issues Addressed: Safety and time management were undermined by former paper charting system.

Winning Vendor: Picis.

Terms: Signed March 2007; contract valued at approximately $8 million in hardware, software and implementation.

Selection Team: Eighteen members, one nurse and one physician from each of eight Inova hospitals, led by Douglas Smith, MD.

Number of Vendors Considered: Sent RFPs to 10, and evaluated seven responses.

Finalists: MedHost and A-4 (now Allscripts).

Evaluation Tools: Vendors ranked against 300 RFP criteria; Inova conducted in-house demos and nine site visits in six states (PA, NY, DC, LA, TX, NC).

Tipping the Scale: Picis accepts data from multiple sources, including tablets, digital pens and voice recognition.

Deployment: Under way this fall, rolling out one ED a month.

—Gary Baldwin