ANN ARBOR, MI, – The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives is pleased to announce that UPMC Western Maryland has earned 2019 CHIME HealthCare’s Most Wired recognition as a certified level seven. The Most Wired program conducts an annual survey to assess how effectively healthcare organizations apply core and advanced technologies into their clinical and business programs to improve health and care in their communities.

“Healthcare organizations across the globe are continually striving to raise the standard of care, pushing themselves and their peers to do better,” said CHIME President and CEO Russ Branzell. “We designed Most Wired to identify and share those leading practices so everyone can benefit. It is an honor to be among those that perform at the highest levels, knowing that the excellence they achieve will impact patients for years to come.”

“This recognition is the result of the great work done by the IT team and our superusers throughout the hospital,” said William Byers, UPMC Western Maryland Chief Information Officer. “A lot of effort goes into getting the most from our computer systems to help deliver the best care at the lowest cost and I am pleased that UPMC Western Maryland has been recognized as one of the nation’s 350 Most Wired organizations again in 2019.”

A total of 16,168 organizations were represented in the 2019 Most Wired program, which this year included three separate surveys: domestic, ambulatory and international. The surveys assessed the adoption, integration and impact of technologies in healthcare organizations at all stages of development, from early development to industry leading. Each participating organization received a customized benchmarking report, an overall score and scores for individual levels in eight segments: infrastructure; security; business/disaster recovery; administrative/supply chain; analytics/data management; interoperability/population health; patient engagement; and clinical quality/safety.

Participants can use the report and scores to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement.

This is the second year that CHIME has conducted the survey and overseen the program. Last year CHIME made numerous improvements to the survey, governance and scoring methodology. This year CHIME added an ambulatory survey in addition to the domestic survey, expanded international outreach and incorporated an improved system that allows participating organizations to better benchmark their level of adoption and outcomes achieved. The system includes Most Wired certification at a level that reflects an organization’s overall performance. CHIME also revised the customized benchmarking report for ease of use and will again publish a report based on Most Wired responses to identify industry trends in 2019.