business
Top-ranked hospitals outperform others in EHR adoption
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted May 7, 2012
An analysis of hospitals included in Thomson Reuters’ 100 Top U.S. Hospitals list by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society found that facilities making that list have more advanced levels of electronic health record adoption compared with hospitals overall across the country.
HIMSS designed the study to look for a relationship between the hospitals on the Top 100 list and the scores those hospitals received on HIMSS Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM). HIMSS EMRAM identifies the level of health information technology adoption by assigning a stage of adoption on a scale of zero to seven. Stage 0 describes a hospital that may have some clinical automation, but the three major ancillary departments (lab, pharmacy and radiology) do not have systems implemented. Stage 7 describes a hospital where paper charts are no longer being used and clinical data warehouses are used to analyze data.
In 2009, 92% of 100 Top Hospitals were in Stages 3 to 7, compared with 64% of all U.S. hospitals. In 2010, 89% of 100 Top Hospitals were at Stage 3 or higher, compared with 68% of all U.S. hospitals.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/05/07/bibf0507.htm.
