Case study on HIMSS Davies Award Winners

            The Davies Awards of Excellence recognizes the outstanding achievement of the organizations who utilize the health information technology to sustainable improvement of the patient outcomes to achieve a return on investment. The awards started in 1994 and promoted the HER-enabled improvement in patient outcomes through the sharing of case studies and lessons on the implementation strategies, workflow design, best practices, as well as patient engagement. The essay reviews the case study of one of the Davies Awards called Ontario Shores Center for Mental Health and Sciences (HIMSS, 2015).

            The HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award recipient of 2015 is Ontario Shores Center for Mental Health Sciences. The selected recipient is a public teaching hospital that specializes in comprehensive mental health and additional services for the complex, serious, and persistent mental illnesses. The Center is in Whitby Ontario Canada and has 15 specialized inpatient units and extensive outpatient and community services. It serves a regional population of about 2.8 million persons. The organization has an approximate of 1300 employees and 326 inpatients beds and annual outpatient visits amount to 60, 000 (HIMSS, 2015).

            The Health Center conducted a systematic implementation of clinical practice guidelines over a five-year period to assess to treat patients with schizophrenia. The center leveraged its electronic medical record to provide real-time access to a full spectrum of evidence-based guidelines. Another improvement was increasing clinician adherence to clinical best practices and tracking adherence to practices. Also included is providing meaningful feedback to the physicians and clinical managers.

            An assessment conducted over a twelve month follow-up period on adherence to polypharmacy, metabolic monitoring, and referral of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis recorded an increase by 5.8 %, 51.0 %, and 74.8 % respectively (HIMSS, 2015). The hospital ensured that the patients received the correct therapy and at the appropriate time. Thus, there were few patients with a risk to themselves leading a high quality of life during the period.

            Many mental health care facilities face unique challenges in reducing the hospital-acquired infections due to the increased time spent in the communal places. Thus, the hospital makes use of an Infection and Control status board that supports an innovative symptom surveillance workflow. The strategy ensures the identification of the patients at risk and revokes precautions in the absence of an order from the physician. Thus, the hospital reduced the outbreak days from 47 to 7 after implementation of the initiative (HIMSS, 2015).

            Ontario Shores is the first recipient of the Davies Awards in the Behavioral health space and also the first Canadian hospital to get the award. The hospital utilizes technology to ensure that the patients receive the correct treatment and care at the right time. The use of technology enables the hospital makes reduced medication errors and infections. Such errors have the potential of threatening the health of the patients. The technologies used to help to improve the quality of life and reduce mental health problems.

            Ontario Center use replicable workflows that intertwine the real-time data delivered by the EMR into care delivery. It is a significant feature for behavioral health facilities seeking to improve the mode of care delivery through the use of technology. The Davies committee identified the effective use of health IT at Ontario Shores that improves patient outcome.

The case study alongside others demonstrates how information technology helps to improve patient safety, care outcomes and cost savings. 

Reference

HIMSS (2015) Ontario Shores Center for Mental Health Sciences selected as 2015 HIMSS          Enterprise Davies Award Recipient: Transforming Health through IT.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in College Essay Writing Service if you need a similar paper you can place your order from cheap essay help online.