HIMSS Analytics Honors MetroHealth Medical Center With Stage 7 Award

The HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 award honors hospitals operating in a paperless environment and representing best practices in implementing EHR

HIMSS Analytics awarded MetroHealth Medical Center, in Cleveland, Ohio, with a Stage 7 Award. The award represents attainment of the highest level on the Electronic Medical Records Adoption ModelSM (EMRAM), which is used to track EMR progress at hospitals and health systems.

HIMSS Analytics developed the EMR Adoption Model in 2005 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. The final stage, Stage 7, represents an advanced patient record environment. The validation process to confirm a hospital has reached Stage 7 includes a site visit by an executive from HIMSS Analytics and former or current chief information officers to ensure an unbiased evaluation of the Stage 7 environments.

During the third quarter of 2014, only 3.4 percent of the more than 5,400 U.S. hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics Database received the Stage 7 Award.

“We are proud to lead the way toward high-quality, patient-centered and technology-enabled care," said Dr. David Kaelber, MD, PhD, MPH, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at MetroHealth. "This recognition, complementing the HIMSS Stage 7 ambulatory recognition we received early this year, acknowledges MetroHealth's leadership and commitment to pushing the use of electronic medical records for the benefit of our patients, our healthcare system, and all of Northeast Ohio."

MetroHealth System is a public health system committed to providing health care to everyone in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and improving the health of the community overall. Its 6,400 employees deliver care to everyone at its main campus, just west of downtown Cleveland, and at 16 health centers. MetroHealth is home to Cuyahoga County’s only Level I Adult Trauma Center and Comprehensive Burn Care Center. In the past year, MetroHealth provided more than one million patient visits in its hospital and health centers.

“MetroHealth Medical Center has discovered out how to store patient-entered data in a discrete form to track and improve patient outcomes, and they have integrated a family history questionnaire into the physician’s workflow that automatically calculates and presents to the physician the highest risks for that patient,” said John Daniels, CNM, FACHE, FHIMSS, CPHIMS, vice president, strategic relations, HIMSS. “They also demonstrated significant savings from hard-stop alerts for high-costs tests. MetroHealth System lives up to its reputation as a world-class healthcare delivery organization.”

MetroHealth System will be recognized at the 2015 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition on April 12-16, 2015, in Chicago, Ill.

Visit the HIMSS Analytics web site for more information on the Stage 7 award.

About HIMSS Analytics
HIMSS Analytics collects, analyzes and distributes essential health IT data related to products, costs, metrics, trends and purchase decisions. It delivers quality data and analytical expertise to healthcare delivery organizations, IT companies, governmental entities, financial, pharmaceutical and consulting companies. For more information, visit www.himssanalytics.org.

HIMSS Analytics is a part of HIMSS, a cause-based, global enterprise that produces health IT thought leadership, education, events, market research and media services around the world. Founded in 1961, HIMSS encompasses more than 52,000 individuals, of which more than two-thirds work in healthcare provider, governmental and not-for-profit organizations across the globe, plus over 600 corporations and 250 not-for-profit partner organizations, that share the cause of transforming health and healthcare through the best use of IT. HIMSS, headquartered in Chicago, serves the global health IT community with additional offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia.