UCLA Health IT awarded national recognition

With innovative and patient-focused digital technologies in place, UCLA Health achieves the highest designations from HIMSS Analytics

Los Angeles, CA – September 21, 2017 – Global health care IT organization HIMSS Analytics has recognized UCLA Health’s achievement of the highest level of the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM), which is used to track EMR progress at hospitals and health systems nationwide. That level, O-EMRAM Stage 7 and revalidation of EMRAM Stage 7, represent UCLA Health’s commitment to best practices in implementation of electronic medical records.

UCLA Health’s electronic medical record (EMR) system, CareConnect, has helped reduce medical errors, protect patients, and improved accessibility and transparency of data. Additionally, its system-wide implementation of an online patient web portal has benefited both patients and staff. “Patient satisfaction is higher when organizations make it more convenient to access, share and understand diagnoses and treatment plans,” said Kevin Baldwin, informatics portfolio manager for UCLA Health.

CareConnect also has an extremely high satisfaction rate among faculty and staff who use it daily to manage patient care. “This system has greatly reduced duplicate lab tests and unnecessary testing while ensuring all care-team members, including the patient, have access to the latest lab results and treatment information,” said Scott Sherman, director, ambulatory services and IT pathology and lab systems.

Ellen Pollack, chief nursing informatics officer, said that improvements are a built-in part of the EMR process. “We’re continually analyzing information from our EMR system to improve patient care. We love to hear employees’ ideas on how we can improve EMR functionality.”

Additionally, UCLA Health has established a Patient Focused Technology Advisory Group. The goal of this Advisory Group is to provide patient and family feedback to the informatics department for applications currently in use at UCLA Heath, in order to continually grow and improve technologies, to make sure it meets patients’ needs.

As of quarter 2 2017, 5.3% of hospitals in the US are at Stage 7 for inpatient hospital services, and 10.4% achieved Stage 7 for outpatient services, according to HIMSS Analytics.

“To receive recognition for both is truly remarkable and puts UCLA Health in an elite category among medical centers nationwide,” says Dr. Eric Cheng, chief medical informatics officer. “These designations are another indicator of why UCLA Health continues to be a world leader in patient care.”

About UCLA Health
UCLA Health includes four hospitals on two campuses — Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center; UCLA Health - Santa Monica Medical Center; UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital; and Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA — and more than 160 primary and specialty clinics throughout Southern California. UCLA Health hospitals in Westwood and Santa Monica placed No. 1 in Los Angeles, No. 2 in California and No. 7 in the nation in the 2017-18 U.S. News & World Report rankings.