AnMed Listed Among "Most Wired" Hospitals

AnMed Health has been recognized as one of the nation’s Most Wired hospitals and health systems, according to the 2013 Most Wired Survey. The survey results were released in the July issue of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. 

“This year’s Most Wired organizations exemplify progress through innovation” says Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association. “The hospital field can learn from these outstanding organizations ways that IT can help to improve efficiency.” 

Among the key findings this year, 69 percent of Most Wired hospitals and 60 percent of all surveyed hospitals report that medication orders are entered electronically by physicians. This represents a significant increase from 2004 results when only 27 percent of Most Wired hospitals and 12 percent of all hospitals responded, “Yes.” 

At AnMed Health, information technology is an integral part of providing care. Patient medical records have been electronic since 2000, and AnMed Health was the first in the state to implement PACS, a picture archiving and communication system that gives doctors and clinicians instant and remote access to radiology images. AnMed Health has also introduced speech recognition software that transforms dictated reports into electronic text, allowing radiologists to produce more accurate reports quickly and easily. Today, physicians routinely use a computer-based portal to review monitor data, nursing documentation and diagnostic test results.  

AnMed Health is in the process of bringing electronic health records to every owned doctor’s office. And in the hospital, handwritten orders are already a thing of the past. Physicians use a computerized physician order entry system (CPOE), which sends doctors’ orders directly to caregivers and departments without handwriting and legibility issues.  On nursing units, nurses scan barcodes to ensure patients receive the right medicine in the right dose at the right time, and Horizon Perinatal Care allows caregivers to electronically document and store maternal vital signs and fetal tracings in obstetrical patients.