Eighty-five IT teams are in the running to be named a top hospital in the Healthcare IT News 2014 "Where to Work: BEST Hospital IT Departments" program.

More than 5,000 IT staff from 194 nominated hospitals completed the 79-question online survey. To qualify to be considered a top hospital, at least half the employees in an IT department needed to complete the survey.

The employee survey closed July 15. Independent research company Critical Insights, which conducts the survey, is now analyzing the data, and the top 25 winners will be announced in the October issue of Healthcare IT News, in print and online.

[See also: Best hospital IT departments named.]

Healthcare IT News launched the "Where to Work: BEST Hospital IT Departments" program in 2011 to determine what characteristics distinguish the best hospital IT departments from all the rest. In taking the survey, employees grade their departments across seven categories: day-to-day work, IT team, management, hospital leadership, workplace culture, training and development and compensation.

[See also: 5 Best Super Hospital IT Departments, 2013.]

The program's categories include:

Top-5 small hospital IT departments (up to 25 IT employees)

Top-10 medium (26 to 75 employees)

Top-5 large (76 to 199 employees)

Top-5 super (200-plus employees)

Here are the 85 hospital IT departments in the running to be named a 2014 top hospital:

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