The King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, recently achieved Stage 6 on the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM). The demanding criteria met by the tertiary medical and research facility include the deployment and use of clinical information technology to improve patient safety, quality, and efficiency.
HIMSS Analytics, a not-for-profit healthcare IT organization and subsidiary of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), developed the EMR Adoption Model in 2005 as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals. Tracking their progress in eight completion stages (0–7), hospitals can review the implementation and utilization of information technology applications with the intent of reaching Stage 7, which represents an advanced electronic patient record environment. As of the fourth quarter last year, a mere 5.2% of more than 5,300 hospitals in the United States tracked by HIMSS Analytics had reached EMRAM Stage 6.
“King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center is clearly leading the way on EMR adoption”, explained John Hoyt, Executive Vice President, Organizational Services, HIMSS. “Stage 6 represents an advanced level of sophistication and puts [the hospital] literally in a league of its own in the Middle East and amongst the top 5% globally.”
King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center has deployed several very strategic clinical applications which have been shown to improve quality and safety, including Computerized Practitioner Order Entry (CPOE) where physicians enter patient orders directly into the clinical information system which interacts with an intelligent clinical decision support system; Physician Documentation supported by clinical decision support; Closed-Loop Medication Administration with the use of barcodes to verify the right medication for the right patient at the right time in the right strength and form, and Nursing Documentation online with some direct medical device connectivity for physiologic vital sign capturing.
Increasing evidence points to significant optimizations in safety and quality induced by clinical information systems. Health authorities are also finding that recruiting and retaining staff has improved by the adoption of a modern clinical computing environment.
“As the first recipient of this prestigious accolade in the region, the hospital has demonstrated once again its constant focus on electronic health records to enhance still further the quality of care and clinical outcomes for our patients”, underlined Prof. Qasim Alqasabi, CEO of the hospital (›Fig. 1).