Vidant Health named 2014 Most Wired health system
News Release:
Nation's Most Wired hospitals improve efficiency with health information technology
CHICAGO Vidant Health has been recognized as one of the nation's "Most Wired" health systems, according to the results of the 2014 Most Wired Survey released in Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. This year marks the 16th 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.
This year marks the eleventh time Vidant Health has earned the Most-Wired status.
"Leading access, patient and family experience, and clinical outcomes are the primary goals of Vidant Health," said Janet Mullaney, interim CEO of Vidant Health. "Our recent recognition as leaders in these areas has been greatly facilitated by the support our great people have from our clinical information systems."
"This year's Most Wired organizations exemplify progress through innovation," said 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:
• Sixty-nine 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 that medication orders were entered electronically by physicians.
• Seventy-one 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.
• Sixty-six percent of Most Wired hospitals share patient discharge data with affiliated hospitals, in comparison to 49 percent of the total responders. Thirty-seven percent of Most Wired hospitals do so with non-affiliated hospitals versus 24 percent of total responders.
• Nurses and physicians share best practices for patient safety and use checklists at more than 90 percent of Most Wired organizations.
• To help consumers make better decisions about their health care, standard measures of individual hospital quality performance are reported and publicly available. Nearly half of Most Wired organizations share this information on their websites and 86 percent provide quality scores to clinical leaders on a regular basis as part of their performance improvement initiatives.
"We are committed to providing our physicians and staff the tools they need to do what they do best every day - and that is provide quality health care to the people of eastern North Carolina," said Donette Herring, chief information officer at Vidant Health. "We are leveraging technology to support patient safety, quality and regulatory compliance and are committed to investing in initiatives that support health care providers throughout the region, bringing better health care to the community as a whole."
"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 2014 Most Wired Survey also covered some new areas including big data analytics and patient-generated data. An emerging practice, big data analytics looks at large amounts of data to uncover patterns and correlations.
• 36 percent of Most Wired hospitals aggregate data from patient encounters to create a community health record.
• 71 percent of Most Wired hospitals manage care transitions compared with 57 percent of all responding organizations.
• 43 percent of Most Wired organizations integrate clinical and claims data so that they are accessible, searchable, and reportable across the care community.
"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."
• 69 percent of Most Wired hospitals use tools for retrospective analysis of clinical and administrative data to identify areas for improving the quality of care and reducing the cost of care delivered.
"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."
• 35 percent of Most Wired hospitals use social media to deliver care management messages and 40 percent provide mobile applications for secure messaging with patients.
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 680 surveys, representing 1,900 hospitals, or roughly 30 percent of all U.S. hospitals.
The H&HN story detailing results is available at www.hhnmag.com.
About the AHA
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is the national organization that represents and serves all types of hospitals, health care networks, and their patients and communities. Close to 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 40,000 individual members come together to form the AHA. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA website at www.aha.org.
About the Most Wired Survey
The 2013 Most Wired Survey is conducted in cooperation with McKesson Corporation, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), and the American Hospital Association.
About the Sponsors
McKesson Corporation, currently ranked 15th on the FORTUNE 500, is a health care services and information technology company dedicated to making the business of healthcare run better. We partner with payers, hospitals, physician offices, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies and others across the spectrum of care to build healthier organizations that deliver better care to patients in every setting. McKesson helps its customers improve their financial, operational, and clinical performance with solutions that include pharmaceutical and medical-surgical supply management, healthcare information technology, and business and clinical services. For more information, visit http://www.mckesson.com.
AT&T is connecting healthcare in exciting, efficient new ways to help you enhance clinical collaboration, improve patient engagement and care outcomes, lower costs, and move to value-based care. AT&T ForHealthSM is developing and delivering advanced IT solutions in four areas: mHealth solutions; care collaboration and health information exchange platforms; telehealth solutions; and cloud-based services and applications. From health plans to hospitals to physician offices to patients' homes, we're connecting stakeholders across the continuum of care, using smart networks and mobile technologies that help create a healthier world. For more information, visit www.corp.att.com/healthcare/solutions
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers and other senior health care IT leaders. With more than 1,400 CIO members and more than 85 health care IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and health care in the communities they serve. For more information, visit http://www.cio-chime.org.
Contact: Beth Anne Atkins, Vidant Health Strategic Development, (252) 744-3891,
Vidant Health, a mission-driven, not-for-profit corporation, owns, leases or has a majority membership interest in nine eastern North Carolina hospitals and has a management agreement with one other. The health system includes Albemarle Health, Vidant Beaufort Hospital, Vidant Bertie Hospital, Vidant Chowan Hospital, Vidant Duplin Hospital, Vidant Edgecombe Hospital, The Outer Banks Hospital, Vidant Medical Center, Vidant Pungo Hospital, Vidant Roanoke-Chowan Hospital, Vidant Home Health and Hospice, Vidant Wellness Centers, Vidant Medical Group and is affiliated with the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. On the web at www.vidanthealth.com
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