Dallas pediatric hospital wins HIMSS Davies Award

Children’s Medical Center in Dallas has won a 2013 Enterprise HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence for use of health IT, particularly EHRs.

The 595-bed hospital has almost 700,000 admissions and visits annually at two campuses and 16 primary care centers. Its EHR has embedded clinical pathways to guide treatment of numerous conditions such as bronchiolitis, asthma and appendicitis, significantly improving outcomes, according to the hospital’s application. Pamela Arora is chief information officer at Children’s Medical Center.

Children’s Medical Center introduced an innovative concept for pediatric care when the organization embedded clinical pathways into hospital workflows using its EHR, according to a release. The goal was to decrease variation in care and improve patient outcomes and the quality of care. The use of pathways for such conditions as bronchiolitis, asthma and appendicitis has resulted in significantly improved patient outcomes. Compliance with clinical guideline recommendations has been improved with education, easy-to-use order sets, and data sharing to support the pathways. Children’s also uses multiple EHR-enabled strategies for engaging patients and their families in their own care.

“Given how sensitive clinical treatment of children can be because of many factors, e.g., their age, their weight, the use of clinical pathways in pediatric care processes is ‘unchartered waters’ to a certain extent. What Children’s has done in this regard, and the positive clinical outcomes achieved, is indeed commendable," said Janis Curtis, chair of the Davies Enterprise Committee and business relationship management executive at Duke University Health System.

The hospital also redesigned its patient/family portals to encourage higher levels of engagement by patients and families with more content and easier navigation, which includes single sign-on technology. English-Spanish portals integrate with the EHR to enable access to the medical record, entering of relevant information into care logs such as a pain journal for gastrointestinal patients, an asthma symptom calendar and a diet record for the food allergy clinic. Portals also support appointment scheduling, secure messaging and data analytics to provide metrics.

Children’s Medical Center also created a Children’s Social Network with disease-specific communities to support blogging and the sharing of experiences. The asthma management program includes a texting service to educate patients and encourage more participation in their own care, and to send reminders about taking medication.

Children's Medical Center will be honored at the 2014 HIMSS Annual Convention in Orlando in February.