St George’s receives Accreditation HIMSS Stage 6
St George’s has been recognised and accredited for its hard work in implementing clinical informatics systems within the inpatient areas of the hospital. We are the first major teaching hospital in the UK to be accredited to HIMSS Stage 6 (stage 7 is the highest achievable) and the first UK trust to be validated through an onsite visit. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is an international organisation dedicated to improving healthcare quality, safety, cost-effectiveness and access, through the best use of IT.
HIMSS has developed a European Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) which measures progress and the cumulative capabilities of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems within hospitals. Hospitals that reach Stage 6 have established clear goals for improving safety, minimising errors, and recognising the importance of healthcare IT. We join an elite group of hospitals in Europe to achieve this status.
HIMSS visited St George’s on Thursday 11 June to assess our electronic systems being used by doctors, nurses, radiologists and pharmacists. As part of their day long visit, they spent time in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, Coronary Care Unit, radiology, pharmacy and our Electronic Document Management Bureaux.
John Rayner, Director of Professional Development HIMSS UK said: “HIMSS feels that the trust has made exceptional progress towards healthcare automation in the last 2 years.”
St Georges NHS Foundation Trust has implemented a centralised Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system using Cerner Millennium, delivering electronic ordering and resulting for pathology and radiology, medical documentation, nursing assessments, clinical decision support to guide clinical staff in decision making and is the first trust in the country to deliver closed loop medication administration, including electronic prescribing and positive patient and medication identification using barcode technology. In tandem with an electronic documentation management system delivered by 6PM, Scandox and Fortress to digitise all the remaining paper, the trust is now paper-light and on its way to achieve a paperless organisation by 2018.
John Jo Campbell, Chief Information Officer said: “This accreditation reflects an extended period of hard work by all the teams in St George’s and whilst we still have a long way to go we should all feel proud of what we have achieved to date.”
Martin Gray, Chief Clinical Information Officer said: “I am extremely proud of what has been achieved so far by the trust; we are starting to see real benefits for patients. The race is now on to remain at the top of the pile in both the UK and Europe.”
