Piedmont Mountainside Hospital Lab Transitions to State-of-the-Art Computer System

JASPER, GA (August 20, 2007) - On August 20, Piedmont Mountainside Hospital's (PMH) laboratory became fully digital with the addition of new computerized technology.  The SOFT lab system allows patients' test results to be automatically available to doctors via computers.

Previously, individual results produced in the laboratory were printed in the lab and manually delivered to the appropriate doctors.  With the SOFT lab system, results are sent directly from analyzers and testing machines in the laboratory to the doctors trying to access the lab work.  Additionally, multiple results are available on a single print-out.

"The addition of this technology enables our lab to be more efficient with reporting test results," said Jeri McGhee, Piedmont Mountainside Hospital lab manager.  "For doctors, information will be available immediately at their fingertips saving the physicians, lab and the patients a great deal of time."

The changes in the Piedmont Mountainside laboratory are part of a larger system among all of the Piedmont hospitals.  Piedmont Fayette Hospital and Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta already have installed the computerized SOFT lab system.  With all of the Piedmont hospitals on the same computerized laboratory system, results from one hospital's lab will be easily available to doctors at another hospital.  Therefore, in the case that a patient is referred or transferred to another Piedmont hospital for testing, the doctors at their home hospital will be able to access their results automatically through the SOFT system.

 "Since we've become a part of the Piedmont family, we've been able to increase the number of in-house lab tests at Piedmont Mountainside resulting in a decrease of patient referrals to other hospitals," said McGhee.  "We're continuing to grow to meet the community's needs."

According to McGhee, new test analyzers and technology added to the PMH laboratory since the hospital joined Piedmont means fewer patients have to go elsewhere for lab work and, as a result, patients do not have to wait to hear from a reference lab for their test results.

With the updates and additional machines, the size of the Piedmont Mountainside laboratory has expanded as well.

For more information on Piedmont Mountainside Hospital, call 706-301-5300.