Most Wired Survey Demonstrates High Use of Health IT in Hospital Care

The American Hospital Association’s Health Forum recently released its 17th annual HealthCare’s Most Wired Survey, which measures the use and adoption of information technology (IT) among hospitals across the nation.

Surveying 749 participants and representing more than 2213 hospitals, the report examines how hospitals are employing IT to improve value-based healthcare in regards to quality and safety, clinical integration and administrative management.

The survey indicates that hospitals are beginning to utilize IT to send and share information across care settings—84% of physicians belonging to hospitals of the Most Wired list can see and exchange other facilities results and about the same number of physicians can also communicate with patients through email or alerts.

The technology’s ability to open communication between the physician and the patient has also shown to improve patient engagement. Survey responses indicate that a majority of physicians from this year’s Most Wired organizations offer patients access to an information portal as well as self-management tools for chronic illnesses.

“With the rising number of patient data breaches and cybersecurity attacks threatening the healthcare industry, protecting patient health information is a top priority for hospital customers,” Frank Nydam, senior director of Healthcare at VMware, said in a statement. “Coupled with the incredible technology innovation taking place today, healthcare organizations need to have security as a foundational component of their mobility, cloud and networking strategy and incorporated into the very fabric of the organization.”

However, with the heightened use of IT comes an inevitable worry for cyber attacks, which hospitals of the Most Wired list are taking extra precaution for.

The survey found that hospitals are more aggressively protecting privacy and security measures of patient data. 96% of the Most Wired organizations employ intrusion detection systems. Similar responses indicated that hospitals also widely use privacy audit systems and security incident even management programs.