From a press release-
Valley Medical Center has been named among the nation’s “Most Wired” hospitals, according to Health Care’s “Most Wired” 2013 survey released today in the July issue of Hospitals & Health Networks, a publication of the American Hospital Association.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of Health Care’s Most Wired survey. In that time, hospitals and health care systems have made great strides in establishing the basic building blocks for creating robust clinical information systems aimed at improving patient care. This includes adopting technologies to improve patient documentation, advance clinical decision support and evidence-based protocols, reduce the likelihood of medication errors, and rapidly restore access to data in the case of a disaster or outage.
“Valley Medical Center views information technology as a strategic asset and key enabler supporting our delivery of high quality health care, and it’s truly an honor to be recognized nationally for our efforts,” says Rand Strobel, vice president and chief information officer, UW Medicine/Valley Medical Center. “Being included on this list affirms the hard work of our team and demonstrates Valley’s commitment as a technology leader in the health care industry. Achieving this state of technology readiness and how it impacts our ability to provide high-quality care for the people we serve is something we’re extremely proud of.”
“This year’s Most Wired organizations exemplify progress through innovation” says Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association. “The hospital field can learn from these outstanding organizations ways that IT can help to improve efficiency.”
Among some of the key findings this year:
• 69 percent of Most Wired hospitals and 60 percent of all surveyed hospitals report that medication orders are entered electronically by physicians. This represents a significant increase from 2004 results when only 27 percent of Most Wired hospitals and 12 percent of all hospitals responded, “Yes.”
• 71 percent of Most Wired hospitals have an electronic disease registry to identify and manage gaps in care across a population compared with 51 percent of total responders.
• 66 percent of Most Wired hospitals share patient discharge data with affiliated hospitals, in comparison to 49 percent of the total responders. • 37 percent of Most Wired hospitals do so with non-affiliated hospitals versus 24 percent of total responders.
“The concept of health information exchange is absolutely correct. We need to do it and do it in a robust, refined way,” states Russell P. Branzell, president and CEO of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives. “The answer here is standards, standards, standards. We need to standardize the entire process, which we’ve done in almost every other business sector.”
The 2013 Most Wired Survey also covered some new areas such as big data analytics and patient generated data. An emerging practice, big data analytics looks at large amounts of data to uncover patterns and correlations.
Thirty-two percent of Most Wired hospitals conduct controlled experiments or scenario-planning to make better management decisions.
“Meaningful use has been a top priority for CIOs and hospital executives, but understanding all of the data will be critical as new relationships continue to evolve,” says Rose Higgins, vice president, strategic solutions, RelayHealth, McKesson’s connectivity business unit. “Data analytics will be essential to helping hospitals balance quality of care and cost requirements in a new environment of risk-based reimbursement and evidence-based medicine.”
Forty-one percent of Most Wired hospitals provide a patient portal or Web-based solution for patient-generated data.
“The bottom line is that care must be connected and continue wherever the patient is — whether that’s in the hospital or the doctor’s office or in the home,” said Dr. Geeta Nayyar, MD, MBA, chief medical information officer for AT&T. “The healthcare industry has lagged behind other industries, such as banking and travel, in tapping technology that can engage the patient and connect the continuum. We are finally seeing real progress as an industry, but there is still more to do.”
Health Care’s Most Wired survey, conducted between Jan. 15 and March 15, asked hospitals and health systems nationwide to answer questions regarding their IT initiatives. Respondents completed 659 surveys, representing 1,713 hospitals, or roughly 30 percent of all U.S. hospitals.
