Radboud UMC has become the third hospital in Europe to be given the Stage 7 EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) award by HIMSS Europe, while six further European institutions have received stage 6 validation.
Radboud UMC of Nijmegen, Holland, which has 953 beds, is now Europe’s third EMRAM Stage 7 hospital and the first organisation to be given the prestigious award in more than two years. Medication safety and clinical decision support were just two noteworthy areas in which this hospital demonstrated examples of best practices.
Three Turkish hospitals Bolu İzzet Baysal Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon E.A.H., İzmir Dr. Suat Seren Göğüs Hastalıkları ve Cerrahisi E.A.H., İzmir Katip Çelebi Üniversitesi Atatürk E.A.H., the Italian Istituto Di Candiolo (IRCCS) and the two Spanish Hospitals Universitario Central de Asturias (HUCA) and Hospital Universitario Son Espaces also join 28 other healthcare organisations as Stage 6 hospitals in Europe.
Although geographically disperse inspectors noted common outstanding pharmaceutical governance, processes to adapt to system enhancements and also witnessed entirely paperless coding - indicating a truly paperless hospital. These were just a few of the strengths observed amongst other examples of excellent eHealth practices.
The awards will be officially presented today as eHealth Week 2015 gets underway in Riga. The international event is the industry’s biggest European event of the year and presents a fantastic opportunity for sector leaders, national delegations and aspiring institutions to come together for the advancement of medical technology adoption and application.
The seven hospitals will now also be granted access to the newly founded HIMSS Stage 6&7 Club, a forum created for member organisations to share experiences and challenges and to help with the management of the European eHealth community. Hospitals can benefit from the huge pool of knowledge that this club contains and have privileged access to HIMSS Stage 6&7 events and functions.
Uwe Buddrus, senior consultant for HIMSS Europe, congratulated the institutions saying "What they all share is a vision to transform healthcare by using modern means of communication, data capture and processing. They understand and use technology as an enabler, but have also tackled the equally important issues of governance, change management and clinical transformation through IT."
EMRAM has been adapted to meet the needs of European healthcare institutions as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems in hospitals. Tracking their progress in completing eight stages (0‐7), hospitals can review the implementation and utilisation of information technology applications with the aim of reaching Stage 7, which represents a superior electronic patient record environment.
Hospital Marina Salud de Dénia was the first hospital in Europe to achieve HIMSS Stage 7 back in 2012 and has recently also received the prestigious HIMSS Davies Enterprise Award. Vicent Moncho Mas, CIO of the hospital, will also be collecting his award on stage later on today.
About HIMSS Analytics Europe
HIMSS Analytics Europe (HAE) provides health care organisations, governments and industry with extensive data resources and services about the adoption and use of healthcare information technology in Europe. HAE's offerings include comparative Hospital IT adoption benchmarking, a European‐formulated EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) scale, and other resources to help hospital directors, IT executives and clinicians compare and measure their progress.