Texas Children’s has received the 2019 “Most Wired” designation for outstanding healthcare-based technology from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).
The annual Most Wired survey recognizes hospitals and health systems nationwide for information technology (IT) initiatives in the areas of infrastructure, business and administrative management, clinical quality and safety, and clinical integration. For the first time, CHIME introduced separate surveys for domestic, ambulatory and international healthcare. Texas Children’s earned Most Wired in the domestic and ambulatory surveys. We did not participate in the international survey.
“Earning Most Wired designation reflects the partnership of the Information Services team and our many clinical and operational partners at Texas Children’s,” said Myra Davis, senior vice president of Information Services. “One of our strategic goals is to leverage technology and digital platforms to revolutionize the way we provide care to our patients and manage our business enterprises.”
Texas Children’s has earned Most Wired recognition in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and now in 2019. This year’s survey incorporated an improved certification system that allows participating organizations to better benchmark their level of adoption and outcomes achieved. This year, participants were certified at a level between one and 10 that represents their respective achievements, allowing organizations to clearly benchmark against a defined worldwide industry standard.
Texas Children’s achieved Most Wired Certified Level 8. Organizations certified as levels seven and eight met the criteria for being designated as Most Wired. These organizations have deployed technologies and strategies to help them analyze their data and are starting to achieve meaningful clinical and efficiency outcomes. Some of these organizations, such as Texas Children’s, are experimenting with more advanced technologies, like telehealth, that expand access to care.
Some of Texas Children’s notable IS achievements include:
Successful Epic system upgrade – IS successfully upgraded Texas Children’s Epic electronic health record. The upgrade is important because it touches users and patients throughout the organization. It provides a robust platform to support patient engagement and care team enablement to influence positive patient outcomes through quality, safety and operational efficiencies. Some highlights include:
- Renal – EpicCare Dialysis (Nephrology) integrates outpatient dialysis treatment and therapy plan data; extracting clinical information and demographic data and submits directly to CrownWeb/CMS, provides new specialty plans of care activity for required monthly, annual and unstable reviews, and creates a ‘snappy’ new dialysis snapshot report available by default to clinicians.
- MyChart – Texas Children’s newly redesigned patient portal has expanded functionality to include subspecialty self-scheduling, quick and easy account (instant) activation, guest bill pay, pre-appointment check-in, waitlist for sooner appointments, and the ability for patients to share the information in their MyChart accounts with other medical providers via Share Everywhere.
- Beacon – Epic’s module to manage oncology care allows providers to create a patient’s treatment plan that carries over to every oncology appointment. Treatment plans are created from standardized protocols, which are templates that promote standardized documentation and treatment for similar diagnoses.
More Epic benefits to come – In addition to improvements and new features, the recent Epic upgrade set the stage to launch additional application features:
- Beaker – Epic’s new pathology information module manages lab orders and results, specimen collection, workflows, testing and reporting.
- Cupid – Epic’s new cardiovascular information module provides order entry, scheduling, procedure documentation and structured reporting for diagnostic cardiology procedures.
- Alaris Smart Pump – A communication interface between patient IV pumps and Epic that allows staff to focus on patient care rather than manual data entry. The system also promotes patient safety by decreasing the risk of IV medication errors.
- Tapestry Program – Implementation of Epic Tapestry, CRM and Healthy Planet modules to replace several disparate systems at Texas Children’s Health Plan in order to improve Health Plan operational efficiency and improve care of its members.
Disney Team of Heroes – IS worked with the Walt Disney Co. to ensure the installation of equipment related to the Disney Team of Heroes Program. Texas Children’s is the first hospital to work with Disney on this comprehensive new initiative that will enhance the patient and family experience at children’s hospitals across the globe through a unique combination of reimagined spaces, personalized moments and engaging content, all featuring Disney’s beloved characters and themes.
Improved access to care – IS improved the patient experience by enhancing access to care by:
- Patient scheduling – IS partnered with clinicians, schedulers and the Epic & Revenue Cycle team to generate a questionnaire template to guide scheduling staff when making appointments. The result is a consistent process that improves the patient experience and promotes access to care.
- Wait times – IS updated the Texas Children’s Urgent Care website to display location wait times, which allows patients to make an informed decision and potentially save time, improving patient satisfaction.
Spanish language version of MyChart – The Epic Patient Engagement team introduced a Spanish language version of the MyChart patient portal for Texas Children’s multilingual patients, families and staff.