Nebraska Medicine, part of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, was honored at the 2016 HIMSS Annual Conference for achieving Stage 7 EMRAM in 2015. Hospital leaders and decision makers turn to the >HIMSS Analytics Benchmark Suite, including the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM), to chart their path forward to reducing costs and increasing the quality of care in their facilities by implementing electronic medical records.

Nebraska Medicine includes two acute care hospitals: Nebraska Medical Center, a 621 bed acute-care facility, the state’s largest and highest-rated hospital, and Nebraska Medicine – Bellevue, a 55 bed full-service hospital. The hospitals serve patients from all 50 states and more than 50 countries internationally. U.S. News & World Report has consistently named Nebraska Medicine the top hospital in the state and Becker’s Hospital Review recognizes Nebraska Medicine as one of the 100 Best Hospitals in America. Nebraska Medicine has an international reputation for providing solid organ and bone marrow transplantation services and houses one of the nation’s three biocontainment units that have successfully treated patients with Ebola and is capable of caring for anyone exposed to a contagious and dangerous disease. Nebraska Medicine is designated as a Magnet hospital for nursing excellence and in December 2015 achieved HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model™ Stage 7 for both Nebraska Medicine hospital locations. 

Nebraska Medicine has a complex and highly-specialized patient population and high bed occupancy, in which all beds are MDI tele-capable; however, utilization of telemetry significantly exceeded benchmarks with like institutions. Data showed approximately 65 percent of patients hospitalized for longer than 24 hours spent the majority of their hospital stay on telemetry and 70 percent of telemetry orders were not canceled until the patient was discharged. Excessive telemetry causes increased work for patient care teams, who must respond to false alarms; can cause complications for patients without risk for cardiac events or stroke; and can be taxing on the organization’s Heart Monitoring Unit,. As Nebraska Medicine’s patient population continues to expand, continued high telemetry utilization would also require significant capital investment to add a second central monitoring hub. Decreasing telemetry utilization would ensure Nebraska Medicine staff could meet the growth needs within the organization. 

Read Nebraska Medicine's full Stage 7 Case Study and hear from Michael Ash, Senior Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer for Nebraska Medicine, on what it means to their organization to be validated as Stage 7 EMRAM.

Nebraska Medicine's HIMSS Analytics EMRAM Stage 7 case study is just one example of how a hospital was able to accomplish many goals by partnering with HIMSS Analytics to chart their course and achieve Stage 7 on the EMRAM.