Best Hospital IT 2016: #1 Medium Hospital
Tuality Healthcare, Oregon
IT Staff: 29
Licensed Beds: 218
Overall Score: 72.69%

Tuality Healthcare of Hillsboro, Oregon has a history of being recognized as a desirable place to work; it has won several awards from local magazines over the years. Sonney Sapra, chief information officer, is quick to share the credit, reporting that his team of 43 IT professionals is the reason for Tuality’s ranking at the top of medium-size hospitals in the Healthcare IT News’ 2016 Best Hospital IT Departments Award.

Aside from a culture of mutual respect, Sapra said the 218-bed hospital has built an effective team by continuously working on population heath, also a priority for Tuality affiliate OSHU (Oregon Health & Science University) Partners.

One example is the team gearing up for predictive analytics using natural language processing: the hospital is readying the electronic health records of patients who are potential candidates for septic shock. This added bit of warning to clinicians helps draw attention to what could be a deadly occurrence. “We’re trying to be more predictive — get to the root cause before it actually happens — and stop it before the patient even goes there,” Sapra says.

Another aspect of Tuality’s cutting edge efforts is its work toward managing the safety of its mobile devices. With security concerns keeping Sapra up at night, the IT team is currently working on a way to manage the hospital’s mobile devices with a geo-fence, a virtual barrier that prohibits the hospital’s secure personal health information from going beyond a mile of the hospital.

Healthcare IT News Best Hospital IT Departments 2016: 
⇒ Meet the winners
⇒ CIOs reveal what makes an IT shop great 
⇒Interactive map: Best Hospital IT Departments 

The app that stores this information “drops off” as soon as providers go beyond the geo-fence perimeter. Providers will still be able to use the device, they just won’t be able to access the personal health information, Sapra says. Tuality hopes to roll this feature out in the coming months.

In addition to population health, predictive analytics and increasing security, Tuality is focused on improving apps. As Sapra sees it, the future of healthcare is in apps. Electronic health records are more like the “plumbing” in a house. Things won’t function without it, but it’s not necessarily what you look for on the outside. He would like to see apps customized to make EHRs more useful for specialty physicians, in particular, who have historically struggled with EHRs fitting into their workflow.

Workplace culture was one of 87 questions senior executives (CIO, CMIOs, etc.), directors of IT, clinical and systems analysts, technicians, help desk staff and others responded to on our survey.

Overall Ranking