HIMSS Analytics Honors Springhill Medical Center With Stage 7 Award

The HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 Ambulatory Award honors ambulatory facilities operating in a paperless environment and representing best practices in implementing EHR

HIMSS Analytics awarded Springhill Medical Center (SMC), in Mobile Ala., with its Stage 7 Ambulatory Award. The award represents Springhill Medical Center’s attainment of the highest level on the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) for both its hospital and physician practices.

Developed in 2011, the EMR Ambulatory Adoption Model provides a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for ambulatory facilities owned by hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics Database. Stage 7 represents the highest level of EMR adoption and indicates a health system’s advanced electronic patient record environment.

During the fourth quarter of 2014, only 6.21 percent of the more than 30,000 U.S. ambulatory clinics in the HIMSS Analytics Database received the Stage 7 Ambulatory Award.

“To be designated a Stage 7 provider is validation of our continued successes in improving patient outcomes, participation, physician integration and financial performance. In doing so, I am reminded of a statement by our founder, the late Dr. Gerald L. Wallace, made while speaking of his vision to be uncommon. ‘As a hospital founder, to accept challenge, anticipate, and then answer the needs. We at Springhill Memorial Hospital will rewrite the traditional and make the most advanced a common occurrence. To build a medical center second to none.’ SMC has pursued this mission since its founding. Achieving Stage 7 designation is testament to our fulfilling Dr. Wallace's dream.

Springhill Medical Center is a 252-bed acute care hospital accredited by the Joint Commission. Since 1975, Springhill has grown and expanded its services in the southwest Alabama market. The medical center provides full surgical capabilities including open-heart and robotic surgery, as well as complete diagnostic capabilities. Today, SMC includes the hospital, a unique and comprehensive heart center, senior residence, sleep medicine center, cancer center, athletic club, orthopedic surgery center, wound care and hyperbaric center, and an emergency department.

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

Visit the HIMSS Analytics website (http://www.himssanalytics.org/home/index.aspx) 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.