19 AUG 2015

NorthBay Healthcare Hospitals 'Level Up'

 NorthBay Healthcare's hospitals in Fairfield and Vacaville have reached the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics Stage 6 of the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM), a goal that only 24 percent of hospitals in the nation have achieved.

"Achieving Stage 6 for NorthBay Medical Center and NorthBay VacaValley Hospital is a great milestone and demonstrates our ongoing investment and commitment toward having an effective electronic health record," said Chris Timbers, NorthBay's vice president and chief information officer. 

Timbers credits the hard work of many individuals, noting Michelle Hearn and the clinical IT team, and Ed Ballerini, R.N., and the clinical informatics team, as well as "all the areas of our organization that have worked to automate our EHR. This is quite an accomplishment." 

NorthBay is pursuing Stage 6 recognition for its Center for Primary Care and NorthBay Medical Group facilities and expects to have final validation within the next few months. 

The groundwork is also being laid to achieve HIMSS Analytic Stage 7 sometime in early 2017 for both the clinics and hospitals. Level 7 is the highest goal attainable, said Timbers, and represents the most advanced electronic health record environment. 

"HIMSS Analytics congratulates NorthBay for leading the way toward health IT adoption," said John Hoyt, Executive Vice President, HIMSS Analytics in a press release Aug. 6. "Stage 6 represents a level of sophistication that only 1,332 U.S. hospitals have reached to date," he wrote. More than 5,400 U.S. hospitals are tracked by HIMSS Analytics.

According to a press release from HIMSS, Stage 6 hospitals:

  • Appear to have a significant advantage over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment, and competitive marketing for both consumers and nurse recruitment.
  • Have almost fully automated/paperless medical records when they have implemented their IT applications across most of the inpatient care settings.
  • Are either starting to evaluate their data for care delivery process improvements or have already documented significant improvements in this area.
  • Have made investments that are within reach of most hospitals and recognize the strategic value of improving patient care with the EMR.
  • Have begun to create strategic alignments with their medical staff to effectively utilize information technology to improve the patient safety environment.
  • Are well-positioned to provide data to key stakeholders to support electronic health record environments and health information exchanges. 

 

"We're very proud of the collaboration that has gone toward achieving this stage," Timbers said. "The message to our patients is that we are committed to maintaining a secure and thorough electronic health record, which means physicians can make the best decisions, based on a patient's history, at the time of care."

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