It's not hard to believe that with 164 hospitals and 111 freestanding surgery centers, HCA's drive for superiority in quality healthcare has landed us on Hospitals & Health Networks' list of "Healthcare's Most Wired In 2011".
Finding IT based solutions for healthcare reform is the name of the game after all, and for the past twelve years H&HN's list has recognized only the best hospitals and healthcare services with a drive for excellence in information technology.
Top qualifiers for 2011 had to prove themselves in infrastructure, business and administrative management, clinical quality and safety and care continuum in order to present patient documentation as structured data, one of the major criteria required for meaningful use under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), to which Noel Williams responded of the recognition, "From clinical systems and support to the many administrative processes involved in healthcare, information technology is vital to HCA's ability to care for our patients."
Noel, as you know, is our Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at HCA.
She went on to say, "We have an outstanding and dedicated team of health IT professionals and HCA business partners who work together, enabling us to be a leader in automating and integrating clinical, patient safety and administrative functions. We are proud to be recognized as a 'most wired' healthcare organization."
HCA's Information Technology & Services (IT&S) department is engaged in the design and implementation of hCare, the company's new electronic health record (EHR), and several other significant technology projects.
IT&S employs more than 3,000 team members across the country. Facilities include the Nashville data center as well as four other regional data centers, 14 IT division support centers, and more than 80 non-HCA facilities, all of which provide systems development, systems integration, information security, customer support, training and education and infrastructure support.
Well done, HCA! Let's keep moving forward.