Healthcare Matters

Based on other US News hospital ranking criteria and the HIMSS EMR Adoption Model, the 30 hospitals listed below have met three challenging standards that put them in the vanguard of centers leading medicine into the era of electronic medical records (EMRs). Each is distinguished by having captured a national ranking in 2012-13 U.S. News Best Hospitals and/or Best Children’s Hospitals or by having earned the designation of “high-performing” in one or more medical specialties. And each hospital, or one or more of its major units–such as a children’s hospital within the larger institution–is a leader in moving to electronic medical records.

Only about 1.2 percent of U.S. hospitals are at Stage 7 according to HIMSS, leaving the other 98-plus percent with catching up to do. U.S. News defines a hospital as “Most Connected” if that hospital, or a major unit of it such as a children’s hospital within the larger institution, has met all three standards: qualifying for federal meaningful use funding, achieving HIMSS Analytic’s top grades for EMR adoption, and earning either a national Best Hospital or Best Children’s Hospital ranking or a high-performing designation in one or more medical specialties.

In Stage 7, the hospital is truly paperless. Clinical information can be readily shared via standard electronic transactions (i.e. CDA, CCR, CCD or state mandated transactions) with all entities within health information exchange networks (i.e. other hospitals, ambulatory clinics, sub-acute environments, employers, payers and patients). This stage allows the healthcare organization to support the true sharing and use of health and wellness information by consumers and providers alike. Also at this stage, HCOs use data warehousing and mining techniques to capture and analyze care data for performance improvement and advancing clinical decision support protocols.