University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa, have been named a 2014 HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award recipient. Since 1994, the HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence has recognized outstanding achievement of organizations that have utilized health information technology to substantially improve patient outcomes while achieving return on investment. The Davies Awards program promotes electronic health record-enabled improvement in patient outcomes through sharing of case studies and lessons learned across a wide range of efforts, including implementation strategies, workflow design, best practice development and adherence, and patient engagement.
Davies Enterprise Award recipients are Stage 7 and 6 hospitals and healthcare delivery organizations, a designation from the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Modelâ� (EMRAM) developed in 2005 by HIMSS Analytics. The EMRAM is an eight-step methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics™ Database. The final stage, Stage 7, represents an advanced patient record environment.
UIHC realized a broad range of significant benefits through the use of information technology:
- Through the use of EHR-enabled clinical workflows and standardized documentation, UIHC significantly reduced adverse drug events and hospital acquired infections.
- With the use of almost 500 best practice alerts and analytics, UIHC significantly reduced instances of venous thrombosis, sepsis, pneumonia, and other clinical conditions.
- As result of improved documentation and secondary diagnosis capture, cost avoidance associated with improved clinical outcomes, and reduced mortality and length of stay, and incentives paid for quality improvements, UIHC has net cash flow of over $50 million from July 2013 to June 2014, attributable to the use of information technology.
“University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics have done a tremendous job of leveraging information technology to integrate efforts to improve quality and the financial bottom line at the same time,” says Jonathan French, HIMSS director of quality and patient safety. “UIHC’s use of information technology to improve care delivery and documentation has resulted in significantly improved clinical outcomes leading to cost avoidance, efficiencies, reduction in claims rejections, and increased revenue. Thus, UIHC has achieved a positive return on investment without even factoring in meaningful use dollars. The Davies Committee and HIMSS congratulate the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics staff for its focus on improving the health outcomes of their patient population through the effective use of health IT.”
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa’s only comprehensive academic medical center and regional referral center, is committed to providing patient-focused care in an environment devoted to innovative care, excellent service, and exceptional outcomes. UIHC and UI Children’s Hospital together deliver quality care in collaboration with University of Iowa Physicians. As Iowa’s largest multi-specialty group practice, it includes faculty physicians of the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. For 2013 UIHC employed 1,593 physicians, residents and fellows, and 8,139 non-physician employees including 1,896 professional nurses. UIHC’s providers are assisted each year by a dedicated corps of more than 1,300 volunteers who provided more than 115,000 hours of service during 2013.
“We are absolutely delighted with this recognition,” stated Kenneth P. Kates, UIHC Chief Executive Officer. “The entire information technology department, in partnership with our outstanding clinical staff, has achieved astounding progress in delivering on multiple goals. Nothing trumps the quality and safety of patient care, and we believe that the investment we made in our information technology systems and processes is clearly helping us achieve that goal.”
University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics will be recognized at the 2015 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition, April 12–16, 2015 in Chicago. For more information on applying for the HIMSS Davies Awards of Excellence, visit the HIMSS Davies Award website. The 2015 Davies submission cycle will be open from Jan. 1 – May 31, 2015.
