Licking Memorial Hospital (LMH) was named as one of the Most Wired Hospitals for 2013. Conducted in cooperation with McKesson Corp., AT&T, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, and the American Hospital Association (AHA), the Most Wired Award is given to hospitals that have made great strides in establishing and creating robust clinical information systems aimed at improving patient care. This includes adopting technologies to improve patient documentation, advance clinical decision support and evidence-based protocols, reduce the likelihood of medication errors, and rapidly restore access to data in the case of a disaster or outage.
“Over the past several years, we have been heavily focused on implementing advanced clinical systems at the point of care to directly impact the quality of care provided to our patients at Licking Memorial Health Systems (LMHS),” said Rob Montagnese, LMHS President & CEO. “We are pleased to be recognized at a national level for our efforts to improve the health of our community.”
Those efforts include use of its wireless network to support clinical technology at the point of care, mobile radiology and biomedical equipment, barcode medication administration, handheld devices to capture patient vital signs and lab data, cellular telephone service, Vocera nurse call and paging system integration, in-room patient monitoring equipment integration with Vocera, and wireless infusion pumps. In addition, wireless internet access is available to patients and visitors throughout the entire Hospital facility.
“Research has shown that information technology can be a powerful tool in supporting the delivery of high quality patient care,” said Sallie Arnett, M.S., RHIA, CHCIO, LMHS Vice President Information Systems. “Such technologies assist medical staff with patient care decisions, improve clinical outcomes and reduce medical errors.”
Among some of the key findings this year for LMH in particular:
• Total inpatient medications orders are entered 100 percent electronically.
• Approximately 99 percent of all inpatient medications are electronically matched to the patient.
• 100 percent of the employed physician practices have implemented electronic clinical documentation, results viewing, computerized provider order entry, and decision support.
LMH makes available digital diagnostic images from Radiology, Cardiovascular Imaging, Mammography, Neuroimaging, and Nuclear Imaging to the appropriate care provider regardless of the provider’s location. LMH also utilizes patient monitoring equipment which sends data directly into the Hospital’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR), including bedside blood pressure, pulse oximetry, temperature, blood glucose, lab tests, and fetal monitoring.
“This year’s Most Wired organizations exemplify progress through innovation,” said Rich Umbdenstock, AHA President and CEO. “The hospital field can learn from these outstanding organizations ways that Information Technology can help to improve efficiency.”
Health Care’s Most Wired Survey, conducted between January 15 and March 15, 2013, asked hospitals and health systems nationwide to answer questions regarding their information technology initiatives. Respondents completed 659 surveys, representing 1,713 hospitals, or roughly 30 percent of all U.S. hospitals.
The AHA is a not-for-profit association of healthcare provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which includes nearly 5,000 hospitals, healthcare systems, networks, other providers of care, and 43,000 individual members.