OJAI, CA – Physician IT leaders are questioning the significance of the “Most Wired Hospitals” list published annually by Hospitals and Health Networks. One physician calls it “dangerous.” The publisher and sponsors of the list defend the data.

“Just how dangerous is this report?” asked William Bria, MD, chairman of the AMDIS board of advisers and chief medical information officer at Shriners Hospitals for Children.

Bria and a panel of physicians discussed the list last month at the 2008 Physician-Computer Connection Symposium put on by AMDIS, the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems.

Bria said that hospital CEOs and boards of directors might mistakenly believe that the simple installation of healthcare IT would lift quality in a hospital.

“The most wired hospital isn’t necessarily the best decision-making organization,” he said.

The Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study is conducted annually by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. In addition to the “100 Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems” list, the magazine releases lists of the “25 Most Improved,” the “25 Most Wireless” and the “25 Most Wired - Small and Rural” hospitals. According to the magazine, the lists are based on a detailed scoring process of the self-reported survey data.

The survey asks hospitals to report on how they use information technology to address safety and quality, business processes, customer service, workforce and public health and safety. This year, 556 U.S. hospitals and health systems completed the survey, representing 1,327 hospitals overall.