HIMSS Analytics Europe will award one German hospital and two Spanish hospitals with the Stage 6 Award for medical record adoption at the Budapest-based European eHealth Week and World of Health IT conference, 10-12 May 2011.

Hospitals receive scores of 0-7 on the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) scale.  The highest distinction is awarded to fully paperless organizations. 
The awards to the German and Spanish hospitals will be presented during a dinner ceremony on Tuesday, 10 May.

"Being a Stage 6 hospital is an important indicator of high quality patient care with an interoperable electronic medical record in place," Uwe Buddrus, managing director of HIMSS Analytics Europe, said in a press release. "The healthcare system is currently plagued by a shortage of personnel and financial resources. Therefore, transparency with regard to cost and quality of patient care becomes more and more important. Our goal is to continuously improve information logistics with a focus on paperless clinical pathways."

"Current methods of delivering healthcare are simply not sustainable in the face of demographic changes and the expected chronic disease wave," said Jeremy Bonfini, executive vice president for Global Services at HIMSS. "We need to have IT systems that give healthcare providers more time to treat patients and allow spending less time in chasing slow moving, missing or unavailable paperwork."