Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) has made it a priority to help make people’s lives better and easier through its dedication to innovating through technology. That focus led to NGHS recently becoming one of only 26 health systems across the nation, and the only one in Georgia, to receive Level 10 Digital Health Most Wired status from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).
The recognition puts NGHS in elite company with other nationally-leading health systems achieving Level 10 status including Cedars Sinai (Los Angeles), NYU Langone Health (New York City), University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and more.
“We’re truly leading the way in the state of Georgia, making life easier for everyone who walks through our doors – whether it be one of our five hospital campuses or one of our many doctors’ offices across the region,” said Chris Paravate, chief information officer at NGHS. “We’re constantly striving to be better tomorrow than we are today, and this designation is proof of what that mindset can achieve.”
To achieve Level 10 Most Wired status, NGHS was visited by independent, third-party surveyors who measured the organization’s adoption, implementation and use of information technology. According to CHIME, organizations that achieve Level 10 are leaders in healthcare technology who actively push the industry forward and see meaningful outcomes including improved quality of care, improved access to healthcare services, improved experiences for patients and reduced costs.
CHIME surveyors specifically recognized a few aspects of the work being done at NGHS including:
- Linking systems and people to improve day-to-day care: NGHS developed a Care Traffic Control Center that puts decision-makers from several different teams across the health system into one physical location and provides them with real-time data from several systems on large screens, so they can more easily identify challenges and work together to create solutions faster. Surveyors said the Care Traffic Control Center “truly enhances decision-making and drives meaningful improvements.”
- Using exceptional analytics to help shape the future: NGHS’ technology and dashboards provide detailed data about the area’s population, which helps inform leaders about where new clinical and non-clinical services should be developed and how to improve existing processes to better serve the region.
- Engaged leadership: CHIME surveyors said they were impressed by the active engagement of NGHS’ operational leaders in using technology and data to drive conversations and inform how care and support services are delivered.
You can take advantage of how NGHS is using technology to schedule your next appointment online, see wait times for Urgent Care locations and save your spot in line, request a video visit and more at nghs.com.