Corridor Hospitals Named to 2010 Most Wired List

Corridor Hospitals 2 of 6 in Iowa

University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids have been recognized as two of the nation's most wired hospitals for their use of electronic and related technology, according to the results of the 2010 Most Wired Survey in the July issue of Hospitals and Health Networks magazine.

University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics was also honored for being one of the most wireless health care facilities because of its extensive use of devices that do not require wires.

Only six Iowa hospitals made the list, and UI Hospitals and Clinics is the only hospital in the state to win the honor in two categories.

From the University of Iowa official release:

"These awards recognize all the hard work and collaboration among administrative staff, information technology staff and the clinical staff here at University of Iowa Health Care," said Lee Carmen, associate vice president for information systems with UI Health Care. "We believe the use of technology can increase patient safety and improve clinical outcomes. We have more work to do, but it's gratifying to know that we are among the nation's leaders in this arena."

This year's survey reveals continued progress for hospitals in patient safety initiatives:

- Fifty-one percent of medication orders were done electronically by physicians at "Most Wired" hospitals, up from 49 percent last year. At UI Hospitals and Clinics, more than 98 percent of providers' medication orders currently are entered electronically.

- More than half (55 percent) of "Most Wired" hospitals match medication orders at the bedside through bar coding or radio-frequency identification, up from 49 percent in 2009 and from 23 percent five years ago. UI Hospitals and Clinics has achieved 100 percent compliance with this "best practice."

Hospitals and Health Networks conducted the 2010 survey in cooperation with McKesson Corporation and CHIME.  The cover story in the July issue of Hospitals and Health Networks magazine, which details results, is available at http://www.hhnmag.com.

UI Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City also recently joined an elite group of hospitals across the country that have earned the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Stage 6 certification for successfully developing electronic medical record capabilities in the transition to paperless patient records and participation in an electronic health record system. Only 1.6 percent of the more than 5,000 U.S. hospitals have reached Stage 6 certification.