Duke Transplant Center To Use Organ Transplant Tracking Software

Software can lower administrative costs, reduce potential for errors

The transplant center at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., has entered into an agreement to use the Organ Transplant Tracking Record, or OTTR, which is software for tracking the medical history and progress of patients undergoing organ transplantation.

Duke University Medical Center has a long history in transplantation. In 1965, it became one of the first hospitals in the country to successfully establish a kidney transplant program. The first successful liver transplant in North Carolina was performed at Duke in 1984, followed by the first successful heart transplant in North Carolina in 1985. Today the Duke Transplant Center performs heart, kidney, pancreas, liver and lung transplants.

OTTR was developed and is marketed by HKS Medical Information Systems to meet the unique clinical and patient-management needs of the organ transplant community.

The Duke Transplant Center is now one of 43 hospitals using OTTR. Those 43 hospitals support 125 solid transplant programs in the United States and Canada. OTTR helps reduce the potential for errors in an area of medicine where hundreds of pieces of data, such as blood type, medications, lab reports, test results, and other information are required to provide quality patient care.

One of the founders of HKS Medical Information Systems was a transplant surgeon who wanted to eliminate the vast amount of paper charting necessary with transplant patients, who are tracked for life.

"Our software allows transplant teams to track and access hundreds of pieces of vital health care information," said Doug Perry, President of HKS Medical Information Systems. "That, in turn, allows the medical staff to spend more time with the patient and less time with the paperwork."

About HKS Medical Information Systems

HKS Medical Information Systems, Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1993 by Dr. Byers Shaw of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Hubert Hickman and Paul Kenyon, Ph.D., HKS strives to improve the quality of patient care and operational efficiencies for its clients. HKS products include OTTR (Organ Transplant Tracking Record), the market leader in patient tracking software for organ transplant centers, and OTTR-HLA, which is a comprehensive software system to support the patient management, reporting and regulatory needs of the HLA laboratory. Clients using HKS products include Georgetown Hospital and Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. Inc. magazine recently named HKS Medical Information Systems as one of the fastest-growing private businesses in America. More information is available at www.hksys.com or 1-800-411-0975.