July 15, 2003
University of Pennsylvania Health System Among the
"Most Wired" In Nation
(Philadelphia, PA) -
The University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS)
has been named one of the nation's "Most Wired" according
to the 2003 Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study,
released today by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine.
"Information has become an essential medical tool for
our healthcare workers - every bit as important to patient
care as any other diagnostic device," said George Brenckle,
PhD, Chief Information Officer of UPHS. "It is our goal
to facilitate the seamless processing and retrieval
of patient information and allow our patients to feel
confident in our abilities to care for them while respecting
their privacy."
The survey was conducted by Hospitals & Health Networks,
in cooperation with McKesson Corporation and the Healthcare
Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
It measures the nation's hospitals on their use of Internet
technologies for safety and quality, customer service,
disaster readiness, business processes and workforce
issues.
"Hospitals are empowering patients with information
and providing tools to doctors and nurses to improve
quality," says Alden Solovy, executive editor of Hospitals
& Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital
Association, which has named the 100 Most Wired hospitals
and health systems annually for five years.
The 100 Most Wired are providing Web-based patient
education at the bedside, disease-specific self-assessments
online and are linking clinical equipment to feed patient
readings directly into the medical record. "Patient
care is at the heart of these initiatives," Solovy says.
"The nation's 100 Most Wired hospitals are emphasizing
clinical quality and patient services in their efforts
to remain technology leaders."
Analysis from this year's survey results shows:
Most Wired hospitals are using Web-based technologies
to feed readings from clinical equipment directly into
the medical record.
- 70% of Most Wired organizations push readings from
cardiac function monitors to medical records.
- 71% of Most Wired organizations push blood glucose
monitor readings to medical records. Most Wired hospitals
continue their drive to make customer services available
via the Internet.
- 42% provide preregistration.
- 87% provide physician referrals.
- 53% provide appointment scheduling.
Most Wired hospitals are deploying electronic disease
surveillance systems.
- 55% have partially electronic methods of disease
surveillance.
- 26% have fully electronic methods of disease surveillance.
Results from the survey were used to name the 100 Most
Wired, the 25 Most Improved, the 25 Most Wireless and
the 25 Most Wired-Small and Rural. More than 400 health
systems responded to the survey, representing 1,128
hospitals or 19 percent of U.S. hospitals.
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PENN Medicine is a $2.2 billion
enterprise dedicated to the related missions of medical
education, biomedical research, and quality patient
care. PENN Medicine consists of the University of Pennsylvania
School of Medicine (founded in 1765 as the nation's
first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania
Health System (created in 1993 as the nation's first
integrated academic health system). Penn's School of
Medicine is ranked #2 in the nation for receipt of NIH
research funds; and ranked #4 in the nation in U.S.
News & World Report's most recent ranking of top research-oriented
medical schools. Supporting 1400 fulltime faculty and
700 students, Penn's School of Medicine is recognized
worldwide for its superior education and training of
the next generation of physician/scientists and leaders
of academic medicine.
Penn's Health System consists of
four hospitals (including its flagship Hospital of the
University of Pennsylvania, consistently rated one of
the nation's "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World
Report); a faculty practice plan, a primary-care provider
network, three multispecialty satellite facilities,
and home healthcare and hospice.
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