by
Loren Hamel, MD - President & CEO, Lakeland Health |
Feb 28, 2017
So maybe it’s not exactly like Hollywood. There are no expensive gowns, tuxedos, paparazzi, and no political views.
But there are awards, and they’re a big deal.
In case you missed it, Lakeland Health received an award for Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 7 recertification and was a semi-finalist for the Healthcare Informatics Innovator Award.
Now before that yawn overtakes your face, let me share with you why those awards should mean something to all of us.
Those awards are given to only a few healthcare organizations around the world that do exemplary things with their health information technology to make healthcare better.
Our ConnectIT team, led by Robin Sarkar, PhD, Assistant Vice President Information Systems and Chief Information Officer, numbers more than 100 professionals who are responsible for keeping our health information technology working, and working well. For example, each month our team makes about 250 enhancements to our electronic health record (EHR) also commonly known to us as EPIC. The goal of each enhancement is to make healthcare safer, more effective, and more efficient.
Although they all deserve awards, last week Cherie File, RN, EHR Senior Analyst, and Tammy Jerz, Manager of Obstetrical Patient Care Services, took center stage. They were recognized in Orlando where more than 50,000 IT healthcare professionals gathered for the HIMSS17 conference.
It was a bit like a “Best Director” and a “Best Picture” award. Their work, and the work of the whole team, was recognized by both HIMSS and the Healthcare Informatics group.
Lakeland’s obstetrics and IT departments’ innovative work centered on helping to identify and reduce the risk of obstetric hemorrhage. Their teams worked to link outpatient and inpatient documentation, create standardized hemorrhage risk assessments, and accurately calculate and document blood loss during delivery. And maybe most importantly their teams worked to make sure blood is readily available when bleeding risk is high.
It sounds complicated. It was. And it works.
Their efforts have reduced the amount of blood needed to treat obstetrical hemorrhage by a full 32 percent. That’s a healthcare “triple play” – better health, better healthcare, at a lower cost.
That is a great story. An award-winning innovation that occurred right here at Lakeland.
