Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, Texas
Leveraging the EHR
The AHIMA Grace Award Committee recognized Children’s Medical Center of Dallas for successfully integrating health information management (HIM) expertise enterprise-wide to improve patient care and population health, and lower costs. At Children’s, HIM credentialed professionals work in multiple departments, including in compliance, finance and information services, where they continue to build out infrastructure and use of technology. The systematic collection and analysis of EHRs has improved Children’s efficiency on so many levels:
- Reducing length of stay in the emergency room by 30 percent
- Cutting the time it takes to receive ambulatory care records from eight days to three
- Decreasing the delinquency rate from 21 percent to 0.4 percent
- Shrinking medication delivery time from 12 hours to 4 hours
- Reducing by 50 percent sentinel events from March 2010-June 2012
- Engaging more than 15,000 patients through a portal, with 15 percent of patients actively involved
Children’s Medical Center also joined forces with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) to pilot a personal health record (PHR) program for patients in Tyler, Texas, who have sickle cell anemia. Allowing patients greater access to health information pays dividends in both medication adherence and patient satisfaction.
“We are pleased to receive this prestigious Grace Award, which recognizes our excellent, innovative health information management team,” said Christopher J. Durovich, Children’s Medical Center president and CEO. “This award celebrates our dedicated employees who work to bring best practices in health information management to Children’s so that we can continue to deliver the right care, at the right time, in the right place as efficiently as possible.”
More Grace Award Winners
2012 Grace Award Winner – University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinic
2013 Grace Award Winner – Truman Medical Centers
2015 Grace Award Winner – Allina Health of Minneapolis
2016 Grace Award Winner – The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
2017 Grace Award Winner – SCL Health
2018 Grace Award Winner – Yale New Haven Health
2019 Grace Award Winner – Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) – Eastern Wisconsin Division
2020 Grace Award Winner – Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)
🎉 Happy #HIPWeek22! Join us in celebrating by saying thank you to health information professionals who ensure health information is human information. #3Mer https://bit.ly/3FtYCz8
“Acknowledging individuals or teams who have responded with grace and achieved triumphs amidst the tumultuous changes and unprecedented challenges facing health information professionals during the pandemic.” #HIPweek22
