CCHHS' Ambulatory Clinics Honored for Advanced Use of Electronic Medical Records

The Cook County Health & Hospitals System’s (CCHHS) 16 ambulatory clinics recently achieved Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Adoption Model for advanced use of electronic medical records to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.

“Digital tools like electronic medical records help health care practitioners make better clinical decisions and provide more coordinated care for their patients,” said Dr. Jay Shannon, CEO, CCHHS. “From our hospitals to our clinics, the health system has fully embraced electronic medical records to improve the quality of care we provide.”

The HIMSS EMR Adoption Model includes eight stages (0-7). According to HIMSS, Stage 6 ambulatory clinics:

• Appear to have a significant advantage over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment, and competitive marketing for both consumers and nurse recruitment.

• Have almost fully automated/paperless medical records when they have implemented their IT applications across most of the outpatient care settings.

• Are either starting to evaluate their data for care delivery process improvements or have already documented significant improvements in this area.

• Have made investments that are within reach of most ambulatories and recognize the strategic value of improving patient care with the EMR.

• Have begun to create strategic alignments with their medical staff to effectively utilize information technology to improve the patient safety environment

• Are well positioned to provide data to key stakeholders, such as payers, the government, physicians, consumers, and employers, to support electronic health record environments and health information exchanges.

• Have made significant executive commitments and investments to reach this stage.

“The widespread adoption of medical records across all of our clinics allows us to not only improve our patients’ care and experience, but also to aggregate data that helps us make meaningful health care decisions as a system,” said Donna Hart, Chief Information Officer, CCHHS. In April 2015, Ms. Hart was named one of the top nine health care IT executives in the nation, earning a Health Information Technology (HIT) Men & Women Award from Healthcare IT News.

CCHHS is now focused on achieving HIMSS Stage 7, the highest level of EMR adoption, across all of its clinic sites and at Stroger Hospital.