3 Healthcare Organizations Win AEHIT Awards for Exemplary IT Projects


11.1.17
By Candace Stuart, Director of Communications & Public Relations, CHIME

AEHIT honored three healthcare systems for their exemplary leadership, innovation and collaboration through the application of technology in healthcare. The awards were announced Oct. 31 at the 2017 AEHIT Fall Summit in San Antonio.

“These awards recognize the contributions of healthcare IT executives who apply and manage the information technology that is central to patient healthcare,” said Suresh Srinivasan, chief technology officer at NYU Langone Health in New York City and chair of the AEHIT Awards Committee. “We are delighted to spotlight these three health systems and their health IT teams for using IT to enhance the patient experience and improve efficiencies.”

The winners are:

  • Community Health Systems, HIT Innovative Project of the Year Award
  • Femwell Group Health, Patient Digital Experience Project of the Year Award
  • Hennepin Healthcare System, Agile Infrastructure Application Development Project of the Year Award

Community Health System (CHS), winner of the HIT Innovative Project of the Year Award, is one of the largest hospital organizations in the U.S. Headquartered in Franklin, Tenn., CHS operates general acute hospitals and owns, operates or leases 137 facilities in 21 states. The CHS executive leadership was tasked with creating a unified strategy to ensure that patients’ experiences were consistent regardless of their state, market or facility. Their solution included educating providers; assembling a task force to assess strategies; vetting suppliers and selecting an industry partner; and implementing the patient engagement platform across the entire network.

Their innovative use of healthcare IT allowed them to capture quality metrics, monitor quality and outcomes and close gaps in care. They reported a 30 percent decrease in no-show appointments for ambulatory patient visits as well as improvements in their in-network referral management and Meaningful Use processes.

Miami-based Femwell Group Health, winner of the Patient Digital Experience Project of the Year Award, has expanded over the past two decades from a company that served a group of Ob-Gyn physicians to include multiple specialties and more than 200 providers across south and central Florida. They realized they needed to adjust their accountable care organization model to mirror the shift in healthcare from fee-for-service to a value-based payment system.

They focused on developing a digital strategy that would allow them to coordinate care across a patient’s entire journey. Their efforts to enhance the patient experience and increase patient engagement translated into improved quality and patient satisfaction metrics that fall in line with value-based care.

The Hennepin Healthcare System in Minnesota won the Agile Infrastructure Application Development Project of the Year Award for building a privately managed network for the organization on a tight timeline. The IT infrastructure team worked with industry partners to increase bandwidth 10-fold while reducing costs. They now report having improved control of the network, which ensures efficient use of critical assets, as well as improvements in access for remote physicians and employees.


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