Avera McKennan Hospital and University Health Center, the largest private employer in South Dakota, has reached Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model.

By achieving Stage 7, the highest level on the EMRAM scale measuring healthcare organization implementation and use of EHRs, Avera McKennan joins an elite crowd. During the second quarter of 2015, only 3.7 percent of the more than 5,400 U.S. hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics Database reached Stage 7. 

“Our staff have been working diligently to implement a fully integrated electronic medical record across the Avera system,” Dave Kapaska, regional president and CEO of Avera McKennan, said in a statement. 

Avera McKennan is an integrated health system composed of more than 330 locations in 100 communities in a five-state region and employs 6,000 staff and physicians. 

Calling the health system “an incredibly innovative organization that is truly enabling their broad mission with information technology,” HIMSS Analytics executive vice president John Hoyt pointed to Avera McKennan’s e-health outreach practices, HIE connections spanning 40 states, and cutting-edge use of pharmacogenomics as some of the factors making it a leader in the field.

HIMSS Analytics developed the EMR Adoption Model in 2005 as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics Database. The validation process to confirm a hospital has reached Stage 7 includes a site visit by an executive from HIMSS Analytics and former or current chief information officers to ensure an unbiased evaluation of the Stage 7 environments.

Avera McKennan will be recognized at the 2016 HIMSS Conference and Exhibition, which runs from Feb. 29 to March 4 at the Venetian – Palazzo – Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas.

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