Children’s National Health System recently announced that it has been recognized by HIMSS Analytics for reaching Stage 6 status on the EMR Adoption ModelSM (EMRAM), an achievement reached by only 32 percent of the nation’s more than 5,400 hospitals. Serving children and families in the Washington area for nearly 150 years, , is a renowned leader in pediatric medicine and recognized globally for the development and implementation of innovative treatments.
“The HIMSS Analytics Stage 6 designation is a strong indication of our commitment to the proper utilization of health information technology to achieve the highest levels of patient safety and quality and care delivery,” says Brian Jacobs, MD, CIO and EVP for the Center for Pediatric Informatics, Children’s National Health System.
Through the Children’s National Bear Institute, a pediatric health information technology division designed to provide value-driven care, the health system seeks to foster innovation and create a world-class IT structure in order to accelerate clinical advancement. From computerized provider order entry to electronic clinician documentation, decision support, positive patient identification through bar coding and numerous other initiatives, Children’s National is building critical IT infrastructure to support care delivery, quality and safety.
HIMSS Analytics developed the EMRAM as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics™ Database. There are eight stages (0 – 7) that measure a hospital’s implementation and utilization of information technology applications. Hospitals can tack and review their progress in completing each stage as they proceed towards the ultimate goal of reaching Stage 7, which represents an advanced electronic patient record environment that delivers safety and efficiency improvements.
The Stage 6 recognition is reserved for hospitals that have made executive commitments and investments and appear to have a significant advantage over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment and competitive marketing for both consumers and nurse recruitment. In addition, Stage 6 hospitals must be fully automated (with paperless medical records) when they have implemented their IT applications across most of the inpatient care settings; have started creating strategic alignments with their medical staff to effectively utilize information technology to improve the patient safety information; and be 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.
