Holy Family Memorial Health Network (HFM) has achieved Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Adoption Model scale. The achievement is the latest in a series of accomplishments underscoring HFM’s focus on improving patient-care safety and quality.
This honor is the result of years of planning, says Ed Bauknecht, director of HFM’s Management Information Systems. “This national recognition is the culmination of many years of hard work by several individuals; not only in MIS, but all of the HFM staff who have dedicated time and talent in the implementation process and are committed to the use of these electronic tools to enhance patient safety,” said Bauknecht. “HIMSS Analytics has confirmed just how far HFM has traveled down the road of EMR.”
Steven Driggers, MD, HFM’s Chief Medical Officer, also stresses that this designation is a key quality indicator that benefits all HFM customers. “Being a Stage 6 hospital reinforces HFM’s commitment to quality care,” said Driggers. “It better positions us to have the capability to provide data on quality of care and to successfully address industry transformations in the future. For the patient and all customers, it means a continued focus on improving care delivery to ensure quality and value throughout our organization.”
HIMSS Analytics created the EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) to identify the levels of EMR capabilities, ranging from an environment at Stage 0 with few to no clinical applications, through Stage 7, an EMR environment where paper records are not used to manage or support patient care, data is mined and analyzed to improve care delivery performance, and data can be easily exchanged between care provider settings. In essence, the EMRAM provides a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of EMR systems.
“HIMSS Analytics congratulates Holy Family Memorial, Inc. for leading the way toward healthcare IT adoption,” said Mike Davis, executive vice president of HIMSS Analytics. “Stage 6 represents a level of sophistication that only 50 U.S. hospitals have reached to date.”
CareTech Solutions, Inc. (www.CareTechSolutions.com), a health information technology (IT) and Web products and services provider for hospitals and health systems nationwide, has served as Holy Family Memorial’s healthcare IT provider since 2007. CareTech helped bring Holy Family Memorial’s EMR vision to life by providing a full spectrum of IT services in support of the hospital’s data center operations, service desk, desktop, network, and applications. CareTech also manages Holy Family Memorial’s MIS staff, and provides technical resources for implementation of Holy Family Memorial’s strategic information technology plan.
“Holy Family Memorial’s achievement of Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model Scale is an outstanding and rare achievement in support of patient care, and stands as the model for other U.S. hospitals to emulate when it comes to healthcare IT adoption and use,” said Jim Giordano, president and CEO of CareTech Solutions. “We’re delighted to have offered our healthcare IT expertise to help Holy Family Memorial address and embrace the national vision for the role technology should play in helping to provide quality, affordable patient care.”
LSS Data Systems, a MEDITECH partner, supplies the core ambulatory EMR and practice management system to Holy Family Memorial.
“We congratulate our colleagues at Holy Family Memorial on this remarkable achievement,” said Bill Schmidt, LSS vice president of sales and corporate development. “Reaching Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model puts them in an elite category, among less than one percent of healthcare organizations nationally.”
According to HIMSS Analytics, Stage 6 hospitals:
- Have made significant executive 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;
- 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;
- Are poised to provide data to key audiences (e.g., payers, the government, physicians, consumers, and employers) to support electronic health record (EHR) environments and health information exchanges (HIEs); and
- Have achieved a significant advancement in their IT capabilities that positions them to successfully address many of the upcoming industry transformations we will be experiencing in the near future, such as HIPAA Claims Attachment, pay for performance, and government quality reporting programs.
