Yale New Haven Hospital selected as a 2011 Most Wired and Most Wireless award winner

7/13/2011 — For the 12th year, Yale New Haven Hospital has been selected as one of the Most Wired Hospitals in the nation by Hospitals and Health Networks, a trade magazine published by the American Hospital Association. All three member hospitals of the Yale New Haven Health System — YNHH, Greenwich Hospital and Bridgeport Hospital — were selected as Most Wired for 2011. This recognition is based on technology advancements made by organizations to enhance patient safety, clinical quality and customer service in healthcare centers.

The nation's Most Wired hospitals have demonstrated better outcomes in four key areas — infrastructure, business and administrative management, clinical quality and safety and care continuum.

"Information technology touches nearly every step of a patient's journey through the hospital," said Daniel Barchi, senior vice president, information technology systems, for both Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health. "We believe that constantly upgrading our systems and investing in new technology helps us meet the needs of our patients through improved quality, efficiency, security and safety of care."

Some recent technology-related improvements at YNHH include:

• Medication management, using bar coding during medication administration at the bedside to verify medication safety parameters.
• Safeguarding sensitive patient information by providing enhanced security training for employees and building in effective security policies and access codes.
• Digital radiology through advances in digital dictation, structured reporting and voice recognition, providing faster diagnostic results to physicians.
• Care continuity through electronic medical records which can share data across the healthcare continuum.

Over the past year, YNHH has begun to develop and implement a nationally-known patient care information system called Epic - a multi-year initiative which will enhance the safety, quality and efficiency of care through a common electronic medical record among all Yale New Haven Health System hospitals, the Yale School of Medicine and many of the community based physicians who practice at our hospitals and outpatient sites.

"Yale New Haven Hospital's consistent national recognition in this area demonstrates our commitment to enhanced information technology," he added. "Epic's vision of 'one patient one record' will be taking us to an even higher level," added Barchi.

Hospitals and Health Networks polls the nation's hospitals on the use of information technology, based on responses from 555 hospitals and health systems that completed the survey, representing 1,280 hospitals.

Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH), part of Yale New Haven Health, is a nationally recognized, 1,541-bed, not-for-profit hospital serving as the primary teaching hospital for the Yale School of Medicine (YSM). Founded as the fourth voluntary hospital in the U.S. in 1826, today, YNHH has two New Haven-based campuses, and also includes Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital and Smilow Cancer Hospital. YNHH has received Magnet designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the nation’s highest honor of nursing excellence. YNHH has a combined medical staff of about 4,500 university and community physicians practicing in more than 100 specialties. www.ynhh.org