EVANSVILLE  –  Deaconess has been named a ‘Most Wired’ healthcare organization for a full decade, and was recognized as a Level 9 organization for second year in a row.    

Out of more than 36,000 health care organizations surveyed, only 108 hospitals nationwide received a Level 9 or 10 from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), as part of the organization’s 2021 Healthcare’s Most Wired program.

The CHIME Digital Health Most Wired program conducts an annual survey to assess how effectively healthcare organizations apply core and advanced technologies into their clinical and business programs to improve health and care in their communities.

At Deaconess, the Informatics & Technology Services and Clinical Informatics & Data Analytics teams collaborated with many departments to complete initiatives that contributed to this Level 9 designation for both Acute and Ambulatory settings.

“Achieving Level 9 in the Most Wired program demonstrates to our providers, staff and community that Deaconess is among the top performers in the nation in providing the most patient-centric and technology-enhanced healthcare environment possible,” said Lisa Hobgood,

Chief Information Officer. “Additionally, our 10-year history is evidence of Deaconess’ ongoing commitment to excellence for our patients and their families.”

Over the past year, intense focus was placed on continually reinforcing Deaconess’ cybersecurity protections, while also further enhancing the patient experience with new and improved self-service tools for patients across our hospitals and clinics.

Examples of these patient-focused efforts include:

• Advancing the transparency of healthcare billing through automated estimating tools and on-line bill pay.
• Expanded Remote Patient Monitoring to include several hundred COVID-19 patients.  This technology, paired with expert nurses, helped many COVID-19 patients recover at home, reducing demand on emergency departments and hospital resources.  
• Further growth of telehealth services, allowing patients to receive quality care at home during the pandemic, as well as reducing missed time from work, travel time and resources, and more. This fiscal year, Deaconess providers completed more than 67,800 telehealth visits. 
• MyChart, the Deaconess patient portal, grew from 208,000 users to more than 245,000, allowing patients to utilize even more new functions. Some of these patient-friendly functions include immediate access to provider documentation, lab, pathology and radiology results. 

“Our team has worked to give patients new and expanded options to provide information to their care team through MyChart questionnaires,” said Dr. Diane Hunt, Chief Medical Information Officer. “Some of these are related to advance directives, as well as social determinants of health. For example, if a patient needs assistance in affording their medication, that can affect their ability to be compliant with their provider’s instructions. When patients can share this information easily in a familiar app, our physicians and other clinical staff are able to provide an even more holistic approach to patient care.”  

The mission of the CHIME “Digital Health Most Wired” program is to elevate the health and care of communities around the world by encouraging the optimal use of information technology. The program conducts an annual survey to identify, recognize, and certify the adoption, implementation, and use of information technology by healthcare provider organizations. The results are intended to improve patient safety and outcomes by driving change in the healthcare IT industry.

Details about the certification levels and results of the survey and study can be found on the CHIME website at https://chimecentral.org/chime-most-wired-2/