Alabama Medical Center Receives HIMSS Stage 7 Award
By Julia Ernst, contributing writer
The organization is being recognized for ‘an advanced electronic patient record environment’ in both its main hospital and ambulatory facilities.
Springhill Medical Center in Mobile, AL has achieved Stage 7, the highest level possible, on the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Adoption Model, for both its hospital and physician practices. The Stage 7 Award represents the highest level of EMR adoption and indicates a health system’s advanced electronic patient record environment.
The HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) facilitates the evaluation of an EMR’s progress and impact in a hospital. The EMR Ambulatory Adoption Model facilitates the same evaluation of a hospital’s ambulatory facilities. Eligible organizations are those hospitals, and related ambulatory facilities, in the HIMSS Analytics Database.
During the fourth quarter of 2014, only 6.21 percent of the more than 30,000 US ambulatory clinics in the HIMSS Analytics Database received the Stage 7 Ambulatory Award, HIMSS Analytics notes.
“Springhill Medical Center is an extremely paperless environment; there are no charts on the nursing units. The only residual paper is monitoring strips for cardiology and obstetrics. This is an excellent example of an enterprise deployment that is deeply embedded into their culture resulting in uniform usage,” said John P. Hoyt, FACHE, FHIMSS, executive vice president of HIMSS Analytics. “Report writing and systems background monitoring of processes are well supported by scripting tools that judiciously warn physicians without ‘pop-up overload.’”
Springhill Medical Center is a complete medical-surgical healthcare facility with 252 beds. The facility features full surgical and diagnostic capabilities as well as a cancer program, women and children’s care, and specialized services like sleep disorders and pain management.
HIMSS Analytics provides analytics and data to support decision-making by healthcare professionals, healthcare IT companies, and consulting firms. Springhill Medical Center will be recognized at the 2015 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition on April 12-16 in Chicago.
SOURCE: HIMSS Analytics