Most Wired Hospitals in Most Wired Metro

Madigan Army Medical Center (1 hospital, 232 beds) and MultiCare Health System (4 hospitals, 893 beds) were among the 215 hospitals nationwide to receive designation as Most Wired in the Hospitals & Health Networks (H&HN) 14th annual survey.

H&HN uses its Most Wired Survey to evaluate IT systems across four categories: infrastructure, business and administrative management, clinical quality and safety, and clinical integration. It focuses on how hospitals use information technologies for quality of care, customer service, public health and safety, business processes and workforce issues.

For the health care industry, the focus on information technology has been directed towards clinical applications — like computerized provider order entry, clinical decision support, health information exchange —and the potential to improve patient safety and create greater efficiencies. That’s largely to the federal government’s push to digitize health care and to because of regulations governing meaningful use. Most Wired hospitals emphasis goes beyond what’s prescribed by those mandates.

High-performing hospitals are hardwiring best practices to improve outcomes and quality of service.

Hospitals are leveraging new communication channels such as social media that offer engaging and supportive programs to enhance the patient experience. Nearly half of Most Wired hospitals use social media for crisis communications compared with one-third of total respondents. More than 25 percent of Most Wired hospitals offer care management messages and chats with physicians.

Seventy-five percent of Most Wired hospitals monitor the performance of their applications and infrastructure proactively to resolve IT issues. Ninety percent of Most Wiredhospitals and 73 percent of all surveyed hospitals use performance improvement scorecards to reduce inefficiencies.