St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon, Pa., is the fifth hospital to win a HIMSS 2014 Enterprise Davies Award for excellence in using electronic health records and other health information technologies.
Using the EHR and data analytics, the hospital identified diabetic patients with high blood sugar levels and those with abnormally low sugar levels.
Consequently, between March 2011 and March 2014, the rate of severe high blood sugar levels fell by about 37 percent, while the rate of abnormally low sugar levels dropped by 59 percent. The 328-bed independent hospital serving a regional population of about 500,000 also created an automated order set triggering an HbA1C test for diabetics who haven’t had a test in the past 90 days.
Other IT-supported improvements at the hospital in recent years include significant reductions in ED waiting room times and times to see a physician, providing pneumonia vaccinations to nearly 100 percent of at-risk inpatients, reducing infection rates, and avoiding an average of 1,100 preventable medication errors annually.
HIMSS in recent months also has honored University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, Lakeland HealthCare in St. Joseph, Mich.; Truman Medical Centers in Kansas City, Mo.; and Marina Salud in Spain with Enterprise Davies Awards; granted an Ambulatory Davies Award to Fremont Family Care in Fremont, Neb.; and bestowed a Community Health Organization Davies Award to Community Health Centers Inc. of central Florida. Winners will be honored during the Awards Dinner at the HIMSS15 conference in Chicago.
St. Clair Hospital’s Davies Award application, which detailed its quality improvement initiatives and results, is available here.
