The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, an organization focused on better health through information technology, recently recognized Baptist for reaching “Stage 6” status on its Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model, a feat that only 25 percent of hospitals in the country have achieved. Every Baptist Memorial hospital and almost every Baptist Medical Group clinic is using the Epic Baptist OneCare electronic health record.
Stage 6 is the second highest level possible, and it means Baptist
- Has made significant executive commitments and investments to reach this stage
- Appears to have a significant advantage over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment, and competitive marketing for both consumers and nurse recruitment
- Has almost fully automated/paperless medical records when implementing its information technology applications across most of the inpatient care settings
- Is either starting to evaluate data for care delivery process improvements or has already documented significant improvements in this area
- Has made investments that are within reach of most hospitals and recognizes the strategic value of improving patient care with electronic medical records
- Has begun to create strategic alignments with its medical staff to effectively utilize information technology to improve the patient safety environment
- Is 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.
“Reaching Stage 6 is a huge accomplishment, and it’s a great example of what we can achieve by working together,” said Beverly Jordan, vice president and chief information and transformation officer for Baptist. “It proves that our Epic implementation was a huge success.”
Baptist joins just 26 Tennessee hospitals, 15 Mississippi hospitals and 12 Arkansas hospitals in reaching Stage 6. Other than Baptist Medical Group, only two Mississippi physician practices and two Tennessee physician groups have reached Stage 6. No other physician group in Arkansas has reached Stage 6 and only one has reached Stage 7—the highest level possible.
Stage 6 hospitals and clinics also have achieved a significant advancement in their information technology 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.
“More than anything, reaching Stage 6 means HIMSS recognizes our commitment to patient safety and quality care in our electronic medical record adoption,” said Jordan. “Because we have reached such a high level of electronic medical record adoption, we were the only local health care system that was not penalized for readmissions, and we have seen great improvement with computerized physician order entry adoption and barcode medication administration use.”
For more information about HIMSS, visit http://www.himssanalytics.org/stage7.