Medical Center Achieves Stage 6 Recognition for Electronic Medical Records

By ChaseYavondaC

HIMSS Analytics ranked the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) hospital and outpatient services a Stage 6 on its Electronic Medical Record Adoption ModelSM (EMRAM) standards and Outpatient Electronic Medical Record Adoption ModelSM (O-EMRAM), respectively.

Portrait of Rhonda Jorden

Rhonda Jorden, UAMS chief information officer

Only 32 percent of the more than 5,400 U.S. hospitals tracked by HIMSS Analytics had achieved Stage 6 as of June 2017.

To achieve Stage 6, hospitals and outpatient services:

  • Have made significant executive commitments and investments
  • Have a significant advantage over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment and competitive marketing for both consumers and nurse recruitment
  • Have almost fully automated/paperless medical records
  • Evaluate their data for care delivery process improvements
  • Have made investments that are within reach of most hospitals and recognize the strategic value of improving patient care with electronic medical records
  • Have begun to create strategic alignments with their medical staff to effectively utilize information technology to improve the patient safety environment
  • Are well-positioned to provide data to key stakeholders – such as payers, the government, physicians, consumers and employers – to support electronic health record environments and health information exchanges.

Stage 6 hospitals also have achieved a significant advancement in their IT capabilities that positions them to successfully address many of the current industry transformations.
“This certification is a culmination of UAMS senior leadership’s strategic vision and the collective execution of that vision by UAMS patient care teams, informatics teams, information technology teams, educators, administrators and many others,” said Rhonda Jorden, UAMS chief information officer. “The whole team should be very proud of this achievement.”
“HIMSS Analytics congratulates UAMS for making significant progress towards achieving advanced health IT adoption,” said John H. Daniels, global vice president, HIMSS Analytics. “Stage 6 represents a level of sophistication that can lead to innovative health care transformation.”
HIMSS Analytics is a global health care adviser, providing guidance and market intelligence solutions that move the industry forward with insight to enable better health through the use of IT. EMRAM and O-EMRAM provide a strategic roadmap and guidance along an 8-stage model with comparisons to health care organizations in the same country and around the world. For more information, visit himssanalytics.org.

UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,275 students, 890 medical residents and fellows, and five dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 12,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.

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