Best Hospital IT 2016: #4 Super Hospital
Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey
IT Staff: 304
Overall Score: 60.13%
Hackensack Meridian Health's co-CIOs consider "cutting-edge" technology to be tech that enhances healthcare and improves patients' lives. With that in mind, they said one of their most cutting-edge technology efforts today is the Hackensack Meridian Health app.
"We are trying to make the lives of our patients better and get them more connected to our health network so we can be there for them at all times, and one of two or three big initiatives we are doing along these lines is our app," said Shafiq Rab, MD, senior vice president and co-CIO at Hackensack Meridian Health.
"The Apple and Android app enables patients to register themselves from home by taking a selfie and taking a picture of their driver's license and their insurance card. It matches those and does an eligibility check and also asks some pertinent questions."
After that, the information is sent into the organization's EHR. It matches previous patients with their medical record number or assigns new patients a new medical record number.
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"Then the patient can select a doctor for an appointment," Rab said. "The app also allows a patient to connect to GPS in her car for directions to a facility. On the back end, the app connects with the MyChart Epic software, and allows patients to pay their bills. The next step is when you walk and take your heart rate with wearables, that goes from your measuring machines into the phone and then the cloud, MyChart and the EHR."
Hackensack Meridian Health also is in the midst of deploying the Epic EHR software across its network of facilities.
"Epic is the toolbox to be able to continue to innovate and improve patient care and the patient experience," said Joseph Mannion, MD, regional senior vice president and co-CIO at Hackensack Meridian Health.
Looking five years out, the co-CIOs see a lofty future: "We are looking more to cloud-based solutions than we have been in the past," Mannion said. "We have had a bunch of hosted applications. But our continual strategy is looking to the cloud for the larger applications."
And the organization sees the presence and role of IT continuing to evolve in the years ahead.
"What has happened is we are more focused on outcomes and the patient experience, and we have moved out of the office to the outpatient setting and the home and the nursing facility and so on," Rab explained. "IT is no longer just between the four walls of our hospitals. And then that moves into our strong efforts in such areas as population health.”
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
| Question | Very dissatisfied or Disagree completely | Dissatisfied or Disagree | Neutral | Satisfied or Agree | Very satisfied or Agree completely |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | Very dissatisfied or Disagree completely | Dissatisfied or Disagree | Neutral | Satisfied or Agree | Very satisfied or Agree completely |
| How satisfied you are working for the IT department at this organization? | 7.1% | 5.1% | 7.1% | 28.1% | 52.5% |
| How satisfied are you with your job and elements of your day-to-day work? | 4.6% | 4.6% | 7.1% | 33.3% | 50.4% |
| How satisfied are you with your immediate work unit, team or IT department group? | 3.6% | 4.3% | 7.2% | 28.4% | 56.5% |
| How satisfied are you with your direct supervisor, manager or group head, the person you report to directly? | 4.4% | 3.0% | 10.3% | 26.9% | 55.4% |
| How satisfied are you with the senior management and leadership of your organization? | 4.4% | 4.8% | 10.3% | 33.2% | 47.2% |
| How satisfied are you with the workplace culture in this organization? | 3.3% | 4.8% | 10.4% | 28.1% | 53.3% |
| How satisfied are you with training, professional development and advancement in this organization? | 3.3% | 4.8% | 13.7% | 35.2% | 43.0% |
| How satisfied are you with compensation, benefits and employee recognition at this organization? | 1.9% | 6.7% | 11.9% | 41.6% | 37.9% |
| I plan to continue my career with this organization. | 4.1% | 0.4% | 7.8% | 27.1% | 60.6% |
| I would recommend employment here to a friend. | 3.0% | 3.0% | 8.2% | 26.4% | 59.5% |
