August 03, 2005
Wednesday

PeaceHealth has once again been named one of the "100 Most Wired" health systems in the nation. The recognition is based on a study conducted by Hospitals and Health Networks Magazine, a journal of the American Hospital Association (AHA). The study is a joint project of Hospitals & Health Networks, IDX Systems Corp., Accenture Ltd., and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, and included 502 surveys representing 1,255 hospitals in the U.S. This is the seventh year of this prestigious award, and PeaceHealth has been an award recipient for the past six years. The Most Wired award recognizes PeaceHealth's work in creating a Community Health Record (CHR), which was established in 1996 as a way to improve service to patients through electronic records and communication systems connecting all points of care. The CHR includes an intranet-based electronic medical record, medical knowledge resource, medical research database and communication connections for employees, physicians and others.

One key finding of the survey suggests that hospitals and health systems that have invested significantly in information technology may have lower mortality rates. The independent analysis, conducted by health-care firm Solucient, said the 100 most-wired hospitals have, on average, risk-adjusted mortality rates that are 7.2% lower than other hospitals. The analysis compared mortality results for the 2005 most-wired list with the rest of the nation. While the survey's authors say the analysis doesn't establish a causal relationship between information-technology use and improved mortality rates, the study says it may demonstrate that technology can play an important role in improving quality. "Hospitals that have better outcomes are using a broader array of IT tools," says Alden Solovy, executive editor of Hospitals & Health Networks.

John Haughom, MD, PeaceHealth Senior Vice President of Health Care Improvement, commented, "Similar to other award recipients, PeaceHealth has many examples of improvements in quality, safety, and operations that have been enabled by our advanced information technology infrastructure. However, I believe we have just scratched the surface. Because of the hard work of many people across PeaceHealth, we have awesome capabilities at our disposal. It will be an exciting journey as we learn how to leverage the powerful tools currently in place to improve the care we provide to the patients and communities we serve."

Source of News:

Ketchikan General Hospital
http://www.peacehealth.org/SoutheastAlaska/

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