May 14, 2014 - What do you get when you combine a dedicated leadership team, targeted physician support, and a solid EHR? For Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital (Hollister, CA), it all added up to Stage 6 EMR adoption from HIMSS Analytics.
According to Information Systems Director Suzie Mays, the organization’s journey to Stage 6 all started with making preparations for Meaningful Use.
“All of our executives supported the EHR and the benefits it provides for patients, which was very important for us,” she says. “The Meaningful Use attestation process can be a long and laborious one, but it was wonderful for us to reach Stage 6 along the way. It gave everyone a boost of confidence in what we’re doing to improve care delivery through technology.”
One of the most important things Hazel Hawkins did to secure staff buy-in, was to focus on physician and team training across the continuum. “We provided around-the-clock support for our physicians while they were learning CPOE,” Mays says. “Having one-on-one support really made the difference; today, we have a 90 percent compliance rate.”
Mays also credits the collaboration between MEDITECH and the IS staff, with helping the hospital to fully optimize their EHR. “MEDITECH wanted to help us in any way they could, to make sure we had everything we needed to achieve Stage 6,” she says. “They made it easy.”