Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) has earned a Stage 7 award by HIMSS Analytics, and will be recognised at the Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois in April 2015. The award recognises hospitals which implement and utilise information technology to achieve an advanced electronic medical record (EMR) environment.

“Eliminating errors and significantly reducing serious harm are virtually impossible without a good technology foundation,” said Mark Headland, Vice President and CIO of CHOC Children’s. “In addition to earning Stage 7 honours, just preparing for HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 recognition was a gratifying experience, as it reinforced our achievements in developing a fully-automated care environment,” he said. 

In 2005, HIMSS Analytics developed its EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) to evaluate the impact of EMR systems on the hospitals in its database. There are eight stages, ranging from 0 to 7, with Stage 7 representing best practices in an advanced patient record environment. The Stage 7 award is a prestigious achievement attained by only 3.4 percent of more than 5,400 US hospitals in the organisation’s database in the third quarter of 2014. Validation is confirmed through a site visit by HIMSS Analytics executives and current or former chief information officers.

The selection of CHOC as an award winner is related to its significant reduction in serious patient harm events and its successful implementation of a predictive alerting process. The process used electronic health records to virtually eliminate non-ICU codes, according to HIMSS Vice President of Strategic Relations John Daniels, CNM, FACHE, FHIMSS, CPHIMS.

“And if other hospitals are looking for a best practice in including breast milk in the closed loop mediation administration process, tell them to reach out to CHOC Children’s for their case studies on improvements in breast milk bar code scanning…its outstanding! Quality is seriously ingrained into this organisation’s culture,” said Daniels.

CHOC is affiliated with the University of California, Irvine. Its regional healthcare network is comprised of two hospitals in Orange and in Mission Viejo, several primary and specialty care facilities, and a residency program specialising in paediatrics. There are four clinical centres of excellence the network: CHOC Children’s Heart, Neuroscience, Orthopaedic and Hyundai Cancer Institutes.

HIMSS Analytics is affiliated with HIMSS, which was founded in 1961 to provide healthcare IT education, events, leadership, market research and media services. It is a global organisation comprised of 52,000 members in healthcare, government and non-profit groups. Headquartered in Chicago, it has offices in Asia, Europe and the US.

Source: HIMSS Analytics
Image Credit: Children’s Hospital of Orange County

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HIMSS, Children, EMR, HIMSS 2015, analytics Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) has earned a Stage 7 award by HIMSS Analytics, and will be recognised at the Annual HIMSS Conference & Ex...