The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is pleased to announce that CentraState Healthcare System has earned the 2019 CHIME® Healthcare’s Most Wired recognition as a certified level 7. The Most Wired program conducts an annual survey to assess how effectively healthcare organizations apply core and advanced technologies into their clinical and business programs to improve health and care in their communities.
“We are honored to be recognized for the ninth time as a leader in the development and implementation of technology systems that support the delivery of excellent patient care,” says John Ulett, vice president and chief information officer, CentraState Healthcare System. “Our team has worked tirelessly to support our clinical teams with decision support systems that help prevent complications, reduce errors, eliminate duplication, and improve safety–all of which improves patient quality.”
A total of 16,168 organizations were represented in the 2019 Most Wired program, which this year included three separate surveys: domestic, ambulatory and international. The surveys assessed the adoption, integration and impact of technologies in healthcare organizations at all stages of development, from early development to industry leading. Each participating organization received a customized benchmarking report, an overall score and scores for individual levels in eight segments: infrastructure; security; business/disaster recovery; administrative/supply chain; analytics/data management; interoperability/population health; patient engagement; and clinical quality/safety. Participants can use the report and scores to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement.
“Healthcare organizations across the globe are continually striving to raise the standard of care, pushing themselves and their peers to do better,” said CHIME President and CEO Russ Branzell. “We designed Most Wired to identify and share those leading practices so everyone can benefit. It is an honor to be among those that perform at the highest levels, knowing that the excellence they achieve will impact patients for years to come.”
This is the second year that CHIME has conducted the survey and overseen the program since acquiring it from the American Hospital Association in July 2017. Last year CHIME made numerous improvements to the survey, governance and scoring methodology. This year CHIME added an ambulatory survey in addition to the domestic survey, expanded international outreach and incorporated an improved system that allows participating organizations to better benchmark their level of adoption and outcomes achieved. The system includes Most Wired certification at a level that reflects an organization’s overall performance. CHIME also revised the customized benchmarking report for ease of use and will again publish a report based on Most Wired responses to identify industry trends in 2019.
CentraState has invested more than $160 million in health IT over the past several years as part of its ongoing commitment to enhance patient engagement and health data security. CentraState’s participation in the Most Wired process was a significant factor in being one of the first hospitals in the country to be recognized as a Meaningful User of Technology by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) since 2013. Health IT initiatives implemented at CentraState include computerized physician order entry, electronic medical records, medication bar-coding, and medication reconciliation.