HIMSS has named two organizations as winners of 2015 HIMSS Enterprise Davies Awards. The awards have been issued since 1994 to recognize outstanding achievement of organizations that have utilized health IT to substantially improve patient outcomes while achieving return on investment.

University of Missouri Health Care consists of five hospitals and more than 50 clinics staffed by more than 550 university physicians. MU Health Care has the only Level 1 trauma center in mid-Missouri and as an academic medical center, offers primary, secondary and tertiary services to central Missourians in a 25-county service area with a population of approximately 777,000.

To reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), MU Health Care created mandatory EHR fields that require clinicians to consider and document a specific reason why each patient should receive a catheter. Coupled with a new nursing task in the EHR to discontinue the catheter if it is no longer necessary, CAUTIs decreased 25 percent from 2013 to 2014.

MU Health Care also used health IT to improve the efficiency of operating room procedures by identifying root causes for significant delays in the start of surgical procedures. Improving communications before, during and after surgical procedures helped MU Health Care average 77 percent on-time OR first starts at University Hospital, up from 21 percent in fiscal year 2009. In addition, first-start volumes have increased by more than 18 percent across MU Health Care.

“At MU Health Care, we know that better health is a journey in which technology plays a bigger role than it ever has before,” said Mitch Wasden, CEO and COO. “That’s why we’re committed to using technology to inform and transform how we care for our patients. We’re proud that this commitment has placed MU Health Care among a handful of health systems to earn the prestigious HIMSS Davies Award this year.”

Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores) is another Davies Award winner, the first Canadian hospital to do so and the first behavioral health facility in several years. 

Ontario Shores is a public teaching hospital specializing in comprehensive mental health and addictions services for those with complex, serious and persistent mental illness. Located in Whitby, Ontario, the hospital has 15 specialized inpatient units and extensive outpatient and community services, serving a total regional population of approximately 2.8 million. The organization is staffed by approximately 1,300 employees with 326 inpatients beds (servicing over 115,000 patient days annually), and approximately 60,000 annual outpatient visits.

Ontario Shores conducted a systematic implementation of clinical practice guidelines over a five-year period for the assessment and treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The organization leveraged its EMR to provide real-time access to a full spectrum of evidence-based guidelines, increase clinician adherence to clinical best practices and track adherence to practices and provide meaningful feedback to physicians and clinical managers.

Over a 12-month follow-up period, adherence to polypharmacy, metabolic monitoring and referral to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis (CBT-P) were increased by 5.8, 51 and 74.8 percent, respectively. Making sure patients were receiving the correct therapy at the correct time resulted in fewer patients that presented a risk to themselves or others and a much higher quality of life.

“At Ontario Shores, we are committed to advancing the use of clinical data to ultimately improve process and performance,” says Karim Mamdani, president and CEO. “This award is a reflection of how we align current clinical practices with evidence-based recovery-oriented mental health care to support quality of care,” Mamdani adds.

Both organizations will be recognized at the 2016 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas in February 2016.