Interoperability in NHS Acute Trusts within England: a Situation and Capability Analysis using Freedom of Information requests

Background Many central initiatives to improve digital maturity and interoperability in the NHS started after 2015. There are few prior assessments of digital maturity and interoperability. Methods Freedom of Information Act requests were sent to all English Acute NHS Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to obtain information regarding digital maturity according to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Electronic Medical Record Adoption Mode (EMRAM) scale, and interoperability. Results One third of Acute NHS Trusts have an EMR that meets requirements for EMRAM stage 6 or above. 17.4% of responding Trusts considered this. 59.1% of responding Trusts stated that their EMR allows for functional interoperability with other (interoperable) EMRs. The majority of responding Trusts had not conferred with other Trusts when making EMR purchasing decisions. Discussion In order to realise the benefits of digitisation and interoperability, we discuss policy recommendations including actions for local health economies.

Improving inpatient mental health medication safety through the process of obtaining HIMSS Stage 7: a case report

Although electronic health record systems have been implemented in many health settings globally, how organizations can best implement these systems to improve medication safety in mental health contexts is not well documented in the literature. The purpose of this case report is to describe how a mental health hospital in Toronto, Canada, leveraged the process of obtaining Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Stage 7 on the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model to improve clinical care specific to medication safety in its inpatient settings. Examples of how the organization met several of these HIMSS criteria are described as they relate to utilizing data from the system to support clinician practice and/or decision-making for medication safety.

The maturity assessment of hospital information systems based on Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model – A comparison between private and governmental hospitals

Today, Information Technology (IT) is considered as one of the major national development principles in each country which is applied in different fields. One of the most important fields in which IT is applied is health care and hospitals are similarly considered as most substantial organizations that use IT vastly. Although, different benchmarks and frameworks were developed to assess different aspects of Hospital Information Systems (HIS), still there was no reference model to benchmark HIS in the world until very recently. Eventually, Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) which is globally a well-known model to benchmark the rate of HIS utilization in the hospitals, were emerged. Nevertheless, this model has not been introduced in majority of developing and even some developed countries in the world yet. In this study, EMRAM is applied to benchmark both governmental and private hospitals in Iran. This research is based on an applied descriptive method to assess five governmental and three private hospitals in Isfahan in 2015. This province is one of the most important provinces of Iran. The results reveal that HIS is not at the center of concern in these hospitals and are in the first and second maturity stages in accordance with EMRAM. Therefore, these types of hospitals are far away from desirable conditions and stages. Yet, the immaturity of HISs in private hospitals is more observable. This situation including the pressure of different beneficiaries such as insurance companies, has forced hospital managers to develop and enhance their HISs, especially in governmental hospitals.