Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center awarded for interoperability efforts
Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford, CT, has been awarded the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) Stage 7 Award from HIMSS Analytics. The honor recognizes the organization’s efforts toward collaboration among operational, IT resources, and partnering vendors to create the best system for delivering care to its patients. Stage 7 is the highest level of achievement in the HIMSS Analytics eight-stage EMR Adoption Model.
“Achieving EMRAM Stage 7 validates that we are using our technology to provide safer, more efficient, cost-effective, and higher quality care for our patients,” said John F. Rodis, M.D., Saint Francis President. “Our unified care transitions and enhanced communication between healthcare providers will result in better care for our patients.”
According to HIMSS Analytics, Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center partnered with a specialized niche electronic medical record (EMR) software company and one large vendor to “build, test workflow, study, report, and exchange data between the two systems.” The team worked closely with desktop, server, and virtualization professionals to create the specific application package that was required to deploy this functionality to all of the reading workstations in an organized and uniform fashion. The teams were also able to develop an application package that would allow for remote echocardiology reads.
“Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center has implemented advanced capabilities that include capturing discrete data into the EMR from the cardiovascular information system and using RFID technology in the pharmacy medication dispensing process for the operating room,” said John H. Daniels, CNM, FACHE, FHIMSS, CPHIMS, Global Vice President, Healthcare Advisory Services Group, HIMSS Analytics. “They are experiencing some phenomenal revenue cycle benefits thanks to their focused attention on IT-enabled process efficiencies.”
Saint Francis Hospital will be recognized at the 2017 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition on Feb. 19-23, 2017, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.
Source: HIMSS Analytics
Guide to data exchange during disasters
Public health response to emergencies relies on rapid and accurate data sharing. In that light, Health Level Seven International (HL7) and OASIS have gotten together to publish a joint implementation guide to bridge the electronic gap between emergency response and hospital communities. The aim is to improve emergency patient coordination and ER readiness.
The guide, “HL7 Version 2.7.1 Implementation Guide: Message Transformations with OASIS Tracking of Emergency Patients (TEP), Release 1” is expected to improve the accuracy and timeliness of data exchange between the emergency response community and hospitals and between care facilities in everyday and disaster situations. It will also eliminate the need to re-enter or duplicate patient information for incoming emergency patients.
What exactly does it offer? The implementation guide should improve data exchange by providing a mapping between the OASIS Emergency Data eXchange Language (EDXL) TEP 1.1 message, which enables the coordination of patient movement across the continuum of emergency medical care, and the HL7 Version 2 Admit Discharge Transfer (ADT) messaging standard used in the healthcare setting. It allows hospitals and emergency departments to track incoming patients from emergency services in the field via existing HL7-conformant systems. When a patient must be transported from a healthcare facility by emergency services to another healthcare facility, such as day-to-day transfers or hospital evacuation, the bidirectional data exchange facilitated by the guide enhances continuity of care.
Advancements in coordinating activities in a disaster situation could prove to be highly valuable. “We’ve learned in previous responses and exercises that accurate information is critical but hard to acquire when disasters strike,” said John Dunn, Tennessee Department of Health Deputy State Epidemiologist, in a statement released by the guide’s producers. “We are always looking for improvements in sharing information to benefit our efforts.”
For more information about the implementation guide or to download it free of charge, please visit the HL7 website at: http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/product_brief.cfm?product_id=439.
The guide is also available via the OASIS website at: http://docs.oasis-open.org/emergency/TEP-HL7v2-transforms/v1.0/TEP-HL7v2-transforms-v1.0.html.
