Chicago-based HIMSS Analytics announced today that three of the 11 Memorial Hermann Healthcare System (Houston) hospitals—Memorial Hermann Katy, Sugar Land, and Southeast—have achieved Stage 6 on the EMR Adoption ModelSM (EMRAM). As the largest not-for-profit healthcare system in Texas, Memorial Hermann supports a 5,000 member clinical staff and treats more than 1.4 million patients annually.
In the last 5 years, Memorial Hermann has created a single electronic medical record across its 11 hospitals, and these three hospitals—Memorial Hermann Katy, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land, and Memorial Hermann Southeast—have utilized the most advanced capabilities with complete digital imaging, voice recognition for physician reports, bar coding medication administration, computerized physician order entry, and clinical decision support. These advanced features have resulted in improvements in operational efficiency, clinical quality and patient safety.
As an example of this, the three hospitals that have attained the Stage 6 designation have achieved "closed-loop" medication management. Physicians use computerized order entry with clinical decision support to ensure correct medication dosing and prevention of drug interactions. Pharmacists receive these orders without having to decipher handwriting, and use automated dispensing systems to have individual medication doses available on nursing units. Finally, nurses use bar coding technology to confirm the correct medication for the correct patients, and the computer checks all of this with the original physician order.
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