HIMSS awards Kaiser Permanente for leadership in use of health information technology

Kaiser Permanente, the nation's leading health care provider, with the largest private-sector electronic health record system in the world, received two awards today from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society for its leadership in the use of health information technology.

Specifically, HIMSS awarded Kaiser Permanente:

• The Davies Award for Organizational Excellence
• A Stage 7 Hospital Award for Kaiser Permanente's Moanalua Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii

 (All Kaiser Permanente hospitals have now received Stage 7 status).

Kaiser Permanente was named the 2011 recipient of the annual HIMSS Organizational Davies Award. The award recognizes excellence in the implementation and value derived from health information technology. HIMSS is the largest and most prestigious health IT industry organization in the world, with more than 38,000 member organizations.

"The implementation of our world-class electronic health record, Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect®, has shaped and improved how our physicians and care teams treat patients," said Phil Fasano, executive vice president and chief information officer, Kaiser Permanente. "The Davies Award recognizes the important role of health IT in improving care and the overall patient experience, the same goals we had in mind when beginning the KP HealthConnect project almost 10 years ago."

In addition to the Davies Award, HIMSS Analytics also awarded Kaiser Permanente its 36th Stage 7 Hospital Award for successful electronic health record implementation. Since the award's inception, HIMSS has only given Stage 7 awards to 66 of the nation's 5,815 hospitals. Thirty-six of those recipients are Kaiser Permanente hospitals. HIMSS gives awards to hospitals for IT excellence by rating progress for connectivity using eight stages (0-7). Stage 7 is the highest award in the category and recognizes environments in which paper charts are no longer used to deliver patient care.

"By putting technology in the hands of physicians and caregivers, we are able to diagnose patients quicker, get test results faster, reduce hospital infection rates, and ultimately transform the way we deliver care," said Jack Cochran, MD, executive director, The Permanente Federation. "Electronic health records allow us to deliver on the promise of high quality, patient-centered care."

Kaiser Permanente patients now can easily access their medical information anywhere in the world on mobile devices through a new mobile-optimized website and app. In the first month after the new application was released, it was used more than a million times by Kaiser Permanente members and patients. Kaiser Permanente's personal health record, My Health Manager, is being used by many members to engage their care teams and become actively involved in their health care. Nearly 9 million Kaiser Permanente members now have access to secure health information management features, including online appointment scheduling and prescription refills, lab test results, eligibility and benefits information, even children's immunization records -- all at the touch of their fingertip.

Kaiser Permanente aims to have millions of members utilize the mobile app, and first month usage of the system exceeded 1 million page views. Kaiser Permanente has led the health care world in providing online access to information for its patients. In 2011 alone, more than 68 million lab test results were made available online to Kaiser Permanente patients. Kaiser Permanente members can review lab results – often within hours of the tests—on their mobile devices.

SOURCE Kaiser Permanente