Franklin Memorial Named Among the Nation’s Most Wired Hospitals Again!
More than 1,900 hospitals considered for the award
Farmington¾
Franklin Memorial Hospital (FMH) has again been named as one of the nation’s most wired hospitals according to the results of the 2014 Health Care’s Most Wired Survey released today in the July issue of Hospitals & Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital Association (AHA). FMH was one of 375 hospital recognized in the “Most Wired” category that reflects core development. Twenty organizations exceeded core criteria receiving “Advanced” recognition, while 25 received “Most Improved” and 25 “Most Wired Small and Rural.”
As the nation’s health care system transitions to more integrated and patient-centered care, hospitals are utilizing information technology to better connect disparate care providers. For instance, 67 percent of Most Wired hospitals share critical patient information electronically with specialists and other care providers. Most Wired hospitals, those that meet a set of rigorous criteria across four operational categories, have made tremendous gains by using IT to reduce the likelihood of medical errors. Among Most Wired hospitals, 81 percent of medications are matched to the patient, nurse and order via bar code technology at the bedside.
Health Care’s Most Wired Survey asked hospitals and health systems nationwide to answer questions regarding their IT initiatives. Respondents representing 1,901 hospitals were considered for the award.
Among some of the key findings this year:
- Nurses and physicians share best practices for patient safety and use checklists at more than 90 percent of Most Wired organizations.
· To help consumers make better decisions about their health care, standard measures of individual hospital quality performance are reported and publicly available. Nearly half of Most Wired organizations share this information on their websites and 86 percent provide quality scores to clinical leaders on a regular basis as part of their performance improvement initiatives.
· 71 percent of Most Wired hospitals manage care transitions compared with 57 percent of all responding organizations.
· 69 percent of Most Wired hospitals use tools for retrospective analysis of clinical and administrative data to identify areas for improving the quality of care and reducing the cost of care delivered.
“The Most Wired data show that shared health information allows clinicians and patients to have the information they need to promote health and make the most informed decisions about treatments,” says Rich Umbdenstock, AHA president and CEO. “Hospitals, their clinicians and their communities are doing tremendous work to enhance their IT systems in ways that support care and delivery improvement, and patient engagement goals.”
Franklin Memorial Hospital has made information technology a priority in recent years. For example, all Franklin Health medical practices and the hospital emergency department have converted from paper medical records to electronic medical records that provide instant and complete patient information to consulting health care providers in medical offices, emergency rooms, hospitals, and other health facilities to improve patient care. Most recently, access to a patient portal was given to all Franklin Health primary care patients with computer access. This patient portal is a secure website that gives patients convenient 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection. Using a secure user name and password, patients can view their test results, office visit summaries, medication list, and request prescription refills and appointments. Patient portals have been found to enhance patient-provider communication, empower patients, support care between visits and, most importantly, improve patient outcomes.
Rebecca Arsenault, president of Franklin Community Health Network (FCHN) and Franklin Memorial Hospital, said being recognized for four consecutive years is an important milestone. “This is a very prestigious and much sought after award,” she said, adding that the achievement “is not just about the IT Department, but the entire staff who has embraced the new technologies.”
This year marks the 16th anniversary of Health Care’s Most Wired Survey. “In that time, hospitals and health care systems have made great strides in establishing the basic building blocks for creating robust clinical information systems aimed at improving patient care,” said Ralph Johnson, FCHN chief information officer. “This includes adopting technologies to improve patient documentation, advancing clinical decision support and evidence-based protocols, reducing the likelihood of medication errors, and rapidly restoring access to data in the case of a disaster or outage.”