For the third year, the editorial staff at Healthcare Informatics is proud to sponsor our updated Innovator Awards program (following over a decade of recognizing Innovators in the magazine), which recognizes exceptional achievement in healthcare IT innovation. More than 80 healthcare organizations nationwide submitted details of projects reflecting a broad range of advances in clinical, administrative, financial and other IT areas.
After a series of selection processes to identify the most outstanding entries, we posted the semi-finalists, and descriptions of their innovations, on our Web site, and left it to you - our readers - to decide who the most outstanding teams were.
You chose three teams of IT innovators: Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and the Chester County Hospital, in West Chester, Pa. Each team has a terrific story, and it is our pleasure to share it with you:
At Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, IT and clinician leaders teamed up with their clinical IT vendor to co-develop an always-available clinical dashboard that has improved the effectiveness of intensivists and nurses working in the highly time-sensitive environment of the hospital's three ICUs.
Leaders at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta recognized early on the threat that the H1N1 virus might pose to vulnerable pediatric patients, and developed a multi-pronged plan designed to educate patients and families and to keep staff well-informed as the virus began to spread.
At Chester County Hospital, a multidisciplinary team used advanced clinical information technologies to automate a range of infection control processes, helping the hospital to achieve stunning results, including a 60 percent decrease in hospital-acquired MRSA cases over the last four years.
These team achievements have several things in common, among them a spirit of innovation; a multidisciplinary approach to creating advances that support improved patient care; and origins in organizational cultures that promote leadership, innovation, and continuous performance improvement.
It is a privilege and an honor to present these stories to you, in the hope that they will inspire healthcare leaders everywhere. From our team to yours, please enjoy the case studies that follow. And heartfelt congratulations to the award winners!
- Mark Hagland, Editor-in-Chief, HCI