The Most Wired Survey is conducted annually by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine, the journal of the American Hospital Association (AHA), which uses the results to name the 100 Most Wired hospitals and health systems. It focuses on how the nation’s hospitals use information technologies for quality, customer service, public health, patient safety, business processes and workforce issues.

There were a total of 1,314 hospitals that participated in the Mot Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study, which represents about 20% of all hospitals in the U.S. Only 25 hospitals were awarded the Most Improved honor. In the world of Information Technology, this is one of the highest honors that a hospital can receive for its advancements in using technology to automate patient care. TCRH has been participating in the Most Wired survey for two consecutive years. The survey represents projects that were implemented as of March of 2009.

“It is great to see Twin County Regional Hospital recognized for all of the progress with implementing technology in patient care areas for the past few years. It has been especially rewarding after completing so many automation projects last year like the Nurses Carestation which now allows nurses to document patient care at the bedside by using wireless computers on mobile carts. We also implemented Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in our Family Care Centers, which has placed the clinics in a good position to quickly move forward in complying with the newly mandated federal government’s electronic health records requirements starting in the year 2011. Leadership at TCRH is seeing the direct contribution of Information Technology (IT) on patient care quality, patient safety and patient satisfaction as a result of these projects,” emphasized Jon Applebaum, TCRH President and Chief Executive Officer.

“In the next few years as we move forward with meeting the requirements of the federal government to adopt meaningful use of an electronic health record, we will be working hard to implement all the new automation systems to achieve this requirement. TCRH is in the process of acquiring several of these technologies from the McKesson Corporation that are needed to meet the health care reform requirements. We will be purchasing an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, Operating Room management system and a new Pharmacy system that will provide bedside medication safety checks. In the next year, we are also planning to implement a system to allow physicians to complete orders using Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE),” outlined Jack Roberts, TCRH Director of Information Systems.

Studies have shown that hospitals with greater investments in Information Technology have higher patient satisfaction scores. Applebaum remarked, “Now that the age of technology is finally coming to hospitals, it is nice to know that the end result of automating our hospital is that our patients will receive better and safer care”.