MEDITECH
Hospitals Achieve Prestigious Stage 6 EMR Adoption
Recognition
(3/06/2008)
 |
MEDITECH
is proud to announce two of our customers have each
received Stage 6 Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
adoption recognition from HIMSS
Analytics,
an achievement shared by only 0.1% of hospitals in
the United States. Both Citizens Memorial Healthcare
(Bolivar, MO) and St. Agnes Healthcare (Baltimore, MD)
have implemented health care I.T. to support high
levels of automated patient care delivery leading to
strong system usage and patient safety. "It's
an affirmation," she says. "The most
important thing is improving patient care, and this
recognition affirms that we are doing the right
things to achieve this goal." |
Rigorous
Requirements Raise the Bar for Health Care Quality
The criteria for the HIMSS Analytics recognition are quite
rigorous, and most hospitals have achieved only Stage 1, 2,
or 3 of the stages. These stages were introduced in 2005,
when HIMSS Analytics developed the hospital Electronic
Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) for scoring health care
facility I.T. deployment progress in seven stages, based on
data from the HIMSS Analytics Database. HIMSS Analytics
receives information from those hospitals which participate
in the EMRAM study, and then assigns benchmarks to those
hospitals.
| One of the top
stages, Stage 5, is the closed loop medication stage
requiring CPOE, a pharmacy management system, and an
electronic medication administration record with
either bar coding or radio frequency identification (RFID)
technology to ensure the Five Rights of medication
administration are executed and monitored via
automation. Even more challenging, health care
facilities that achieve Stage 6 have made significant
executive commitments and investments in regards to
their health care I.T progress and are almost
completely automated utilizing paperless medical
records. "Stage 6 hospitals are best prepared for many of the market transformations that hospitals will be exposed to over the next five to 10 years," explains McCormick. "These transformations include pay-for-performance, government reporting, and employer-consumer driven health care." McColm adds the Stage 6 hospitals are best positioned to capture and share data which will be necessary to support the model. "Our hospital is proud to be among the first health care organizations to have received this prestigious designation," she says. |
 |
The
Right Leadership, The Right System
In talking with our Stage 6 designees, we found some common
threads which connect them. First and foremost, Citizens and
St. Agnes both have tremendous executive-level support to
help them reach their patient safety goals. "We have
been blessed to have our visionary leader, CEO Don Babb, as
one of the main driving forces behind the project from the
beginning," says McColm. "He stressed the
importance of becoming electronic. His support, along with
the support from our Board of Directors, was critical to our
success."
St. Agnes also stressed the important role of highest-level
support and I.T. governance. "We had a five-year
strategic plan at the executive level, and we were successful
because we engaged executives at every level of the project,"
explains McCormick.
Both McColm and McCormick stress the importance of an
integrated system as well. "MEDITECH has been the best
vendor for our facility because of its inherent integration,"
says McCormick, who added that he was struck by the varied
size, locations, and settings of the Stage 6 designees, a
point which also caught McColm's attention. "Regardless
of the size or scope of the project, no hospital has an
advantage or disadvantage when it comes to going forward with
adoption," says McColm. "We have a powerful tool
for physicians to have all information at their fingertips:
an integrated MEDITECH system has made this possible."
Being
Paperless
Citizens currently has 100% electronic records for all
patients, whether it be in their acute care hospital, long-term
care facilities, home health agencies, or physician offices.
"Our Medical Records department looks different than it
did five years ago," explains McColm, noting that
Citizens' vision from the very beginning was to provide
information to care providers whenever and wherever they need
it.
"The system brought us early potential and we expanded
upon it," says McColm. "We continued to move
forward and use the system more effectively and efficiently,
and by doing so, MEDITECH provided us with a significant
advantage." Citizens reaped financial improvements, more
functionality for physicians and end-users, and improved
quality measures. "We have some nurses who have never
even used a paper chart," says McColm.
St. Agnes is currently 90% electronic and working towards a
completely paperless system. "Our challenge involves
getting all physicians LIVE with Physician Documentation,"
explains McCormick. "We are actively working towards
expanding electronic physician documentation, which will
result in less scanning of information into the system after
patient discharge."
Closing
the Loop
Receiving Stage 6 EMR adoption recognition is yet another
major honor that Citizens can add to its repertoire of recent
achievements. Three years ago, Citizens received the Nicholas
E. Davies Award of Excellence, a national award which recognizes the
implementation of a single patient-centric electronic medical
record that covers all services of care. The organization was
the first rural health system and the first non-academic
medical center to receive this award. McColm explains what
Stage 6 means to her in comparison to winning the Davies
Award.
"The difference between the Davies Award and Stage 6 is
that Davies has a focus on CPOE, while Stage 6 has an
additional emphasis on administering the Five Rights to each
patient," she says. "Reducing the risk of error
starts when a user places the order. We look at the path the
order takes, and we make sure the right medication reaches
the right patient, with the right route, dose, and time. For
Citizens, the closed loop expands beyond the acute care
setting."
Citizens is
utilizing the ambulatory medication function so medications
follow a patient across the continuum of care. "If a
patient is already in the system from a physician office
visit, the medication will be there when he or she is
admitted to the hospital, which is pertinent for patient
safety," says McColm.
St. Agnes completed its Bedside Medication Verification
project in October 2007. "The BMV project has been well-received
by the nursing staff. They have already scanned over one
million doses of medications at the bedside," explains
McCormick.
Taking
Data Sharing to the Next Level
During the months ahead, both Citizens and St. Agnes will
concentrate on building their data sharing initiatives. St.
Agnes is preparing to implement even more advanced MEDITECH
clinical functionality, including Scanning and Archiving, as
well as extending their LIVE CPOE to more physician users.
Perhaps most exciting for St. Agnes, is their ongoing effort
to expand on their Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO).
"St. Agnes is part of Maryland's first RHIO. We are
currently exchanging real-time clinical data with a long-term
care facility. We have begun the initial planning stages to
expand this RHIO to two other area hospitals," says
McCormick. "MEDITECH's advanced technology and
interoperable products will certainly help St. Agnes as we
work toward our data sharing goals."
The next phase at Citizens Memorial will focus on building
more advanced capabilities to benefit physicians and
clinicians. "We are building quality measurements into
the workflow in our physician offices, and continuing to work
on evidence-based order sets," says McColm. "Our
goal is to automate mundane tasks so both physicians and
patients can benefit."
While the future paths of St. Agnes and Citizens will have a
slightly different emphasis, both credit MEDITECH with
providing a solid foundation from which to move forward into
the next frontier of interoperable technology. "The idea
to start with an integrated foundation has led us to achieve
our success and receive this great recognition from HIMSS
Analytics," says McCormick.
McColm couldn't agree more. "Other vendors cannot match
the level of integration in our EMR," she says. "We
could not have achieved Stage 6 without MEDITECH."
About
Citizens Memorial Healthcare
Citizens Memorial Healthcare (Boliver, MO) is a fully
integrated and nationally recognized health care system.
Citizens has grown tremendously in the past two decades,
offering a state-of-the-art acute care hospital and employing
more than 1,500 individuals in nine counties. Citizens has
received many accolades including Stage 6 Electronic Medical
Record adoption recognition from HIMSS Analytics and the 2005
Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence for excellence in the
use and implementation of health information technology.
About
St. Agnes Hospital
St. Agnes Hospital (Baltimore, MD) is a 308-bed, full-service
community teaching hospital with residency programs in a
number of medical/surgical specialties. By supporting high
levels of automated patient care delivery with health care I.T.
implementation, St. Agnes received Stage 6 Electronic Medical
Record adoption recognition from HIMSS Analytics. St. Agnes
is also part of Maryland's first Regional Health Information
Organization.
MEDITECH
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Information Technology, Inc.
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www.meditech.com