Healthcare's Most Wired Award

Winona Health's Community Memorial Hospital was recognized as one of the top 100 Most Wired Hospitals in 2002 and has been ranked one of the Most Wired-Small & Rural Hospitals every year since.

The annual Hospitals & Health Networks' Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study asks hospitals to report on their use of IT in five key areas: business processes, customer service, safety and quality, workforce and public health and safety.

Winona Health provides the following IT related services and activities to ensure the best possible healthcare for its patients and the Winona area community.

Business Processes

• Automate the supply chain
• Automate patient eligibility and financial transactions with insurance companies and other payers
• Automate the business office and financial operations

Customer Service

• Improve the efficiency of administrative services to patients such as pre-registration
• Assist patients in researching and tracking their own conditions
• Provide the general public with health information and resources to improve their health

Safety and Quality

• Reduce errors in prescribing and ordering medications
• Reduce errors in the administration of medications
• Improve clinical decision making by providing physicians and clinicians with access to electronic health record for their patients
• Improve clinical decision making by providing real-time clinical alerts to assist physicians and other clinicians at the point of care
• Reduce adverse events by electronically monitoring patients and using surveillance systems to alert physicians and other clinicians about changes in a patient's condition

Workforce

• Assist in the recruitment, selection and training of qualified personnel
• Provide extensive training and support to physicians and other clinicians on information systems
• Use workforce management tools to ensure adequate staffing and measure staff performance

Public Health & Safety

• Deploy a wide range of security technologies to safeguard confidential patient information
• Conduct pilot programs or offer patients some form of a web-based personal health record
• Participate in local, regional and national cooperatives to share health information
• Use evidence-based standards to monitor and improve the hospital's performance on specific clinical practices

Source: Hospitals & Health Networks' Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study