HIMSS Analytics announced Nationwide Children’s Hospital has achieved Stage 6 on the EMR Adoption ModelSM (EMRAM). Nationwide Children’s is one of only five hospitals in Ohio and the first Ohio children’s hospital to achieve Stage 6.
“HIMSS Analytics congratulates Nationwide Children’s Hospital for leading the way toward health IT adoption,” said John Hoyt, FACHE, FHIMSS, Executive Vice President, Organizational Services, for HIMSS. “Stage 6 represents a level of sophistication that only 226 US hospitals have reached to date.”
Nationwide Children’s Hospital has been a leader in electronic medical record implementation starting with nursing documentation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units in the early 1990’s. By 2004, all inpatient units were ‘live’ on computerized physician order entry. In 2005, the hospital began fully integrating all care areas within one electronic medical record system. Currently, Nationwide Children’s has advanced functionality in inpatient and critical care environments, the Emergency Department, Pharmacy, Urgent Care, Primary Care and a large number of complex specialty clinics covering a large area of Central Ohio. This advanced functionality includes real-time interfaces with Laboratory and Radiology. The hospital continues to optimize the system to improve the provider experience, add decision support and share pertinent patient information with the patient’s medical home or primary care physician.
“The ability to directly search our electronic medical records and develop reports that describe not only how well we are achieving our goals in patient care quality and safety measures, but also where there are continued opportunities for improvement, has been a direct result of the forward thinking investments in the electronic medical record,” said Richard J. Brilli, M.D., F.A.A.P., F.C.C.M., Chief Medical Officer at Nationwide Children's and Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, The Ohio State University College of Medicine. “This investment has been an essential ingredient in our ability to continually improve the quality and safety of the care we deliver to children.”
HIMSS Analytics developed the EMR Adoption Model in 2005 as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics™ Database. Tracking their progress in completing eight stages (0-7), hospitals can review the implementation and utilization of information technology applications with the intent of reaching Stage 7, which represents an advanced electronic patient record environment.
Stage 6 hospitals:
- Have made significant executive commitments and investments to reach this stage.
- Appear to have a significant advantage over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment, and competitive marketing for both consumers and nurse recruitment.
- Have almost fully automated/paperless medical records when they have implemented their IT applications across most of the inpatient care settings.
- Are either starting to evaluate their data for care delivery process improvements or have already documented significant improvements in this area.
- Have made investments that are within reach of most hospitals and recognize the strategic value of improving patient care with the EMR.
- Have begun to create strategic alignments with their medical staff to effectively utilize information technology to improve the patient safety environment
- Are well positioned to provide data to key stakeholders, such as payers, the government, physicians, consumers, and employers, to support electronic health record environments and health information exchanges.
Stage 6 hospitals also have achieved a significant advancement in their IT capabilities that positions them to successfully address many of the current industry transformations, such as meaningful use criteria in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, claims attachments for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, pay for performance, and government quality reporting programs.
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For more information contact: Nationwide Children’s Hospital Media Relations (614) 355-0495.
About Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Ranked in U.S.News & World Report’s 2011-12 “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals,” Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit freestanding pediatric healthcare networks providing wellness, preventive, diagnostic, treatment and rehabilitative care for infants, children, and adolescents as well as adult patients with congenital disease. A medical staff of 1000 and a hospital staff of 7,600 provide state-of-the-art pediatric care for more than 949,000 patient visits annually. As home to the Department of Pediatrics of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s Hospital physicians train the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric specialists. The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the top 10 National Institutes of Health-funded freestanding pediatric research facilities. Nationwide Children’s remains true to the original mission since its founding in 1892 of providing care regardless of a family’s ability to pay. More information is available at www.NationwideChildrens.org.
About HIMSS Analytics
HIMSS Analytics is a wholly owned not-for-profit subsidiary of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The company collects and analyzes healthcare data related to IT processes and environments, products, IS department composition and costs, IS department management metrics, healthcare trends and purchase-related decisions. HIMSS Analytics delivers high quality data and analytical expertise to healthcare delivery organizations, healthcare IT companies, state governments, financial companies, pharmaceutical companies, and consulting firms. Visit www.himssanalytics.org for more information.