UPMC Named a “Digital Health Most Wired” Health System

8 October 2020 – UPMC has been named a “Digital Health Most Wired” health system by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) for the 22nd year in a row—and one of only eight health systems eligible for the highest tier of recognition.

In addition, UPMC’s international cancer centres in Italy and Ireland—including those in Waterford and Cork—were the first to be assessed and recognised in a new international ambulatory category.

“UPMC has long been on the cutting-edge of technological innovation to ensure the best possible care for patients and the most effective tools for clinicians,” said David Beirne, managing director of UPMC in Ireland. “This experience has helped us to introduce new telemedicine, nurse staffing and biometric check-in capabilities at our facilities across the South East.”

The CHIME Digital Health Most Wired program conducts an annual survey to assess how effectively healthcare organizations use advanced technologies in their clinical and business programs to improve the health of their communities. More than 30,000 organizations completed the survey this year.

UPMC earned a level 10 eligible rating—the highest score possible—in the U.S. ambulatory and acute categories. To achieve this recognition, UPMC and others in this group implemented advanced technologies, including telemedicine, access to data at the bedside and cost analysis tools, and leveraged them to improve care, patient experience and access to services, while reducing costs. UPMC will receive special recognition at the CHIME20: Digital Recharge virtual education forum on 10-12 November 2020.

“In the midst of the challenges that we’ve faced during the Covid-19 pandemic, this recognition is particularly meaningful to our team,” said Ed McCallister, UPMC’s chief information officer. “Our dedicated information technology staff has worked tirelessly to provide innovative solutions that bring life-changing healthcare to our patients and Health Plan members, even when this virus kept many away from their doctors.”

This is the third year that CHIME has conducted the surveys and overseen the Most Wired program. Each participating organization received an overall score, as well as 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.

Over the last four years, UPMC has invested more than $2.4 billion in technologies across the health system to improve the quality and effectiveness of care. Regularly recognised for its technology leadership, more than 30 UPMC hospitals, as well as UPMC outpatient facilities, are at the highest levels of electronic medical record use, as measured by Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society analytics. UPMC also is pioneering advancements in biometrics, machine learning and natural language processing.