UW Hospital and Clinics Among Most Connected, Wired Hospitals

Madison, Wisconsin - While UW Hospital and Clinics was recently honored as Wisconsin's No. 1 hospital by US News & World Report, two other national honors reflect the hospital's advances in the use of information technology.

In the same issue as the overall hospital rankings, US News ranked UW Hospital and Clinics among 156 hospitals that have met twin standards of solid medicine and early adoption of information technology.

The magazine set a high bar for a hospital to make the "Most Connected Hospitals" list:

• First, a hospital must have been nationally ranked or designated as "high-performing" in one or more medical specialties.
• Second, each hospital had to have met federal requirements for "meaningful use" of an electronic medical records system. That means the system must be used for e-prescribing, exchanging medical records, supplying health data to patients and monitoring clinical quality through data.
• Finally, hospitals had to be at Stage 6 or 7 (the highest) according to standards set by HIMSS Analytics, a division of a national society that analyzes use of health-information technology.

UW Hospital and Clinics reached Stage 7 status in 2010. US News calls the "most connected" hospitals a "doubly unique group of institutions, which are both digitally forward and clinically excellent."

And in the same month, Hospitals & Health Networks listed UW Hospital as one of its "Most Wired" hospitals.

This designation is based on a national survey of hospitals and health systems. According to the results, 100 percent of "Most Wired" hospitals check drug interactions and allergies when medications are ordered; and 90 percent use performance-improvement scorecards to help reduce inefficiencies.