Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS FT (GOSH) in London has been awarded Stage 7 on the O-EMRAM by HIMSS this week, making it the first hospital in England to achieve the validation.

O-EMRAM, or the Outpatients Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model, measures the adoption and maturity of a health facility’s outpatient EMR capabilities from 0 to 7. It tests for clinician documentation, including orders, e-prescribing, patient engagement and population health analytics.

WHY IT MATTERS

Shankar Sridharan, paediatric cardiologist, chief clinical information officer at GOSH, said that achieving the validation was “a marker that we are using data and analytics to improve the care and outcomes for our patients and their families”.

He added: “We have a really driven and passionate hospital that is committed to applying digital solutions, data and analytics to drive safer, better and kinder care. The NHS is amazing; COVID has shown that it is the heart of the nation. Digitally augmenting the NHS allows us to truly leverage the NHS’ potential and allow us to do more, better.”

THE LARGER CONTEXT

GOSH was awarded Stage 6 on the EMRAM and O-EMRAM by HIMSS in July this year, making it the first hospital in Europe to achieve both validations.

Meanwhile, Sunderland Royal Hospital in the UK was recently awarded Stage 6 on the EMRAM by HIMSS. The American University of Beirut Medical Center in Lebanon also achieved Stage 6 of EMRAM and O-EMRAM in March.

ON THE RECORD

Sarah Newcombe, chief nursing information officer at GOSH said: "I’m delighted that during a time of unprecedented disruption, clinical teams have been able to take advantage of digital solutions to support the care we deliver. I’m really proud of what the clinical teams have achieved. Being validated at O-EMRAM stage 7 is a great recognition of the hard work and investment of time and commitment these teams have given to their patients and families."

Neil Sebire, professor of paediatric and developmental pathology, chief research information officer and GOSH DRIVE director, said: “We are thrilled with our achievement of O-EMRAM stage 7, which recognises the infrastructure and capability of our analytics platform. We look forward to extending our advanced analytics activities even more widely across operational and clinical areas, and to the future of embedding artificial intelligence and leveraging the next generation of healthcare technology.”

John Rayner, regional director EMEA HIMSS Analytics who led the inspection team, said: “This is a great hospital and a great team. The analytics programme is well advanced and contains clear evidence that the data is instrumental in transforming care which in turn increases patient safety and overall levels of satisfaction for the children, their carer’s and members of staff working at the hospital. I was delighted with the result, it was thoroughly well deserved.”