VCU news

By Carissa Etters

Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center was named among the 2015 Most Wired health care organizations in the country.

The 2015 Most Wired™ Survey and Benchmarking Study is a leading industry barometer measuring information technology use and adoption among hospitals nationwide. The survey of more than 741 participants, representing more than 2,213 hospitals, examined how organizations are leveraging IT to improve performance for value-based health care in the areas of infrastructure, business and administrative management, quality and safety, and clinical integration.

VCU Medical Center has a rich tradition of using technology to benefit patients. The medical center has been using computerized provider order entry for nearly four decades, making patients safer along the way. In recent years, VCU Medical Center further accelerated its technology footprint by building a robust patient portal, closed loop medication administration and population health management.

According to results of the 17th annual HealthCare’s Most Wired™ Survey, released today by the American Hospital Association’s Health Forum and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, health data security and patient engagement are top priorities for the nation’s hospitals.

“Data is the lifeblood of our decision-making process and all performance improvement plans,” said Colin Banas, M.D., chief medical information officer, VCU Health System. “It is the data that helps guide strategic and operational decisions. Data regarding patient portal usage, for example, helps us know which patients – and providers – to target for intervention so that we can improve patient engagement.”

Data is the lifeblood of our decision-making process and all performance improvement plans. It is the data that helps guide strategic and operational decisions.

According to the survey, hospitals are taking more aggressive privacy and security measures to protect and safeguard patient data. Top growth areas in security among this year’s Most Wired organizations include privacy audit systems, provisioning systems, data loss prevention, single sign-on and identity management. Hospitals are utilizing IT to better facilitate information exchange across the care settings. This includes greater alignment between hospitals and physicians, noting the physician portal is a key factor in strengthening physician-hospital alignment.

Additionally, this year's Most Wired hospitals are using the benefits of a patient portal to get patients actively involved in their health and health care. For instance, 89 percent of Most Wired organizations offer access to the patient portal through a mobile application.

HealthCare’s Most Wired™ Survey, conducted between Jan. 15 and March 15, is published annually by Health & Hospitals Network. Respondents completed 741 surveys, representing more than 39 percent of all U.S. hospitals. Last October, the AHA/Health Forum and CHIME announced the formation of a Most Wired partnership to enhance collaboration between the two organizations in the development and sustainability of the survey, and to collectively help meet the growing demand for useful data on health IT integration.

Detailed results of the survey and study can be found in the July issue of H&HN. For a full list of winners visit www.hhnmag.com.

About VCU and the VCU Medical Center  Virginia Commonwealth University is a major, urban public research university with national and international rankings in sponsored research. Located in downtown Richmond, VCU enrolls more than 31,000 students in 226 degree and certificate programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-seven of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 13 schools and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University comprise VCU Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers. For more, see www.vcu.edu. 

About the American Hospital Association The American Hospital Association (AHA) is the national organization that represents and serves all types of hospitals, health care networks, and their patients and communities. Nearly 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 43,000 individual members come together to form the AHA. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, please visitwww.aha.org.

About CHIME  The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 1,500 CIO members and over 150 healthcare IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visitwww.chimecentral.org.

About Health Forum Health Forum is a strategic business enterprise of the American Hospital Association, creatively partnering to develop and deliver essential information and innovative services to help health care leaders achieve organizational performance excellence and sustainability. For more information, please visit www.healthforum.com

About Survey Sponsor VMware is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility. Built on VMware's industry-leading virtualization technology, our solutions deliver a brave new model of IT that is fluid, instant and more secure. Customers can innovate faster by rapidly developing, automatically delivering and more safely consuming any application. With 2014 revenues of $6 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.