Nine California hospitals and health systems made Hospitals & Health Networks' annual "Health Care's Most Wired" list, Healthcare IT News reports. The list recognizes hospitals for successful health information technology planning and implementation.
About the Survey
For the survey, H&HN polled 1,570 hospitals -- or about 27% of all U.S. hospitals -- in partnership with the American Hospital Association, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and McKesson (Miliard, Healthcare IT News, 7/10).
H&HN evaluated the hospitals' health IT implementation across four categories:
- Administrative and business management;
- Clinical integration;
- Clinical quality and safety; and
- Infrastructure.
The survey designated 215 hospitals and health systems as "Most Wired" hospitals, as well as 25 hospitals as "Most Improved" and 25 hospitals as "Most Wired -- Small and Rural" (Weinstock/Hoppszallern, H&HN, July 2012).
California Results
California hospitals and health systems included on the "Most Wired" list are:
- Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage;
- Rady Children's Hospital San Diego;
- San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center;
- Sharp HealthCare in San Diego;
- Stanford Hospital & Clinics;
- UC-Davis Health System in Sacramento;
- UC-San Diego Health System;
- VA Palo Alto Health Care System; and
- VA Sierra Pacific Network in Mare Island.
Naval Hospital Lemoore was named one of the 25 "Most Wired -- Small and Rural" hospitals, and Kaiser Permanente in Oakland was recognized as one of the 25 "Most Improved" hospitals (Healthcare IT News, 7/10).
How 'Most Wired' Hospitals Compared With All Hospitals
According to H&HN, the "Most Wired" hospitals have implemented systems to ensure quality patient care. For example:
- 100% of "Most Wired" hospitals have drug interaction alerts, compared with 88% of all hospitals; and
- 97% of "Most Wired" hospitals have drug formulary checks, compared with 85% of all hospitals.
H&HN also found that the "Most Wired" hospitals are better prepared for security breaches and employ more tools to protect patient data. For example, 93% of the "Most Wired" hospitals perform annual wireless security assessments, compared with 76% of all hospitals.
The survey showed that, compared with all hospitals, the "Most Wired" hospitals are more likely to:
- Engage with patients online, with 94% of "Most Wired" hospitals using Facebook and 80% using Twitter and YouTube;
- Monitor the performance of their IT infrastructure; and
- Monitor the performance of the overall hospital or health system (H&HN, July 2012).