GBMC Is The Only Healthcare System In Maryland To Achieve Highest Analytics Award For Both Inpatient And Ambulatory Services

GBMC HealthCare System has become the first provider in the state to achieve Stage 7, the highest stage, on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) for both its acute care and ambulatory services.




GBMC’s recognition represents its efforts to get high quality technology to patients in the community and for operating in a paperless environment along with representing best practices in implementing electronic health records.




“We are honored to be recognized as the only healthcare company in Maryland that has achieved HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 in both our inpatient and ambulatory care settings,” says John Chessare, M.D., president and CEO of the GBMC System. “We are committed to providing the care we want for our own loved ones to every patient, every time. This is not possible when the physicians and nurses have access to only some of the patient’s information. By achieving HIMSS 7 in both the hospital and physicians’ offices we have eliminated information on paper, the complete record is now available anywhere in the world as long as there is an internet connection. This accomplishment is due to the commitment and the hard work of our highly-skilled team of physicians, nurses, IT professionals and associates at GBMC.”




EMRAM is a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of EHR systems at hospitals, which includes eight stages (0-7) that measure a hospital’s implementation and utilization of IT to optimize the healthcare patients receive. Stage 7 represents an advanced patient record environment. The process to confirm a hospital has reached Stage 7 includes a site visit by an executive from HIMSS Analytics with a chief information officer and a chief medical information officer to ensure an unbiased evaluation.




GBMC’s utilizes the Epic EHR system, first implemented in October 2016, which stores each patient's full medical history and care details. Receiving the Stage 7 recognition shows that the GBMC healthcare system has demonstrated the use of technology to streamline and support patient care. Stage 7 recognition was achieved as a result of meeting several goals including GBMC no longer using paper charts to deliver and manage patient care, which includes a mixture of discrete data, document images, and medical images within its EMR environment, and demonstrating summary data continuity for all hospital services.




The benefits of Stage 7 recognition for patients include:

• Increased functionality and usability to simplify their healthcare experience
• High risk patients for hospital readmission can be recognized prior to discharge and referred to the appropriate provider for follow up in the physician office.
• An automated outreach system is used to contact patients via their preferred method of communication.

HIMSS Analytics is a global health care adviser, providing guidance and market intelligence solutions that move the industry forward with insight to enable better health care through the use of information technology. HIMSS Analytics developed the EMR Adoption Model as a tool to benchmark information technology maturity in health care organizations. Less than five percent of hospitals in the United States have achieved Stage 7 certification.