Hawaii Pacific Health was recently named the winner of the 2012 Enterprise Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Davies Award of Excellence. This is the equivalent of winning the Academy Award for health information technology and is the highest national honor that can be received by any health organization. Steve Robertson, chief information officer for HPH, accepted the award on behalf of HPH in the U.S. Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., before several members of Congress.

Named after Nicholas E. Davies, the award recognizes excellence in health information technology — specifically, excellence in use of electronic medical records (EMR) to successfully improve quality of care and patient safety. The winning organization must demonstrate the value of EMR in driving patient care and improving outcomes, including challenges faced and solutions created that can be replicated by other organizations. Additionally, winners must have achieved Stage 6 or 7 of meaningful use on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model and key meaningful use milestones.

The only other organization in Hawaii that has ever won the HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence is the Queen’s Medical Center, which earned the distinction in 1998.

HPH is a Stage 6 hospital system and ranks in the top 5 percent of hospitals nationwide in the adoption of EMR, with systemwide implementation that allows its hospitals and physicians to offer integrated, coordinated care throughout Hawaii.

"While the Davies Award was a significant recognition for Hawaii Pacific Health, what’s most important to us is how we are using health care IT to transform how we deliver health care in the 21st century," Robertson said. "Our EMR is a tool that allows everyone in our organization to be successful in delivering quality health care. We are also extending that success to our community providers with more than 110 independent physicians using our Epic EMR system."

Ten years ago when Hawaii Pacific Health was formed as a parent company for Kapiolani, Pali Momi, Straub and Wilcox Memorial, the organization was in financial turmoil.

"Having the vision to invest $57 million in an EMR system was a huge financial risk, but we knew it was the right thing to do because we had to make improvements in care in order to achieve long-term savings and success," Robertson said.

To comply with the new requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, health care providers must achieve meaningful use with their EMR systems. It’s not enough to just implement the technology. Providers, whether hospitals, clinics or independent physicians, must be able to demonstrate improved quality outcomes. Additionally, value-based contracts with insurers are quickly becoming the norm in this era of health care reform. Health care providers and insurers cannot achieve success without collaborating on issues such as wellness, prevention and population management.

HPH is seeing great success in improving the health of its diabetic and heart patients and also making inroads in early cancer detection by prompting patients to have important cancer screenings. Kauai Medical Clinic and Straub Clinic, both HPH affiliates, perform at the 90th percentile nationally on most of these quality measures. HPH also has played a role in the development of the Hawaii Health Information Exchange, whose purpose is to improve health care delivery statewide through seamless, effective and safe health information exchange.

In terms of collaboration with other health care providers, Hawaii has become a national leader in facilitating collaboration among health care providers.

"When you look at what Hawaii has achieved over the last few years, it’s absolutely remarkable," Robertson said. "The community’s ability to come together and work collaboratively ensures we will deliver on the promise of health care reform, and we are already getting results. Health IT is a critical element to all of it, but the partnerships and collaboration it enables is the real driver. Winning this award is more about partnerships with our physicians and our payers, and our ability to work toward common goals."

Ira Zunin, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., is medical director of Manakai o Malama Integrative Healthcare Group and Rehabilitation Center and CEO of Global Advisory Services Inc. Please submit your questions to info@manakaiomalama.com.