DCH Health System achieves Level 8 Most Wired from CHIME

DCH Health System (Tuscaloosa, AL), which recently went LIVE with MEDITECH Expanse across three hospitals, was named by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) to the Digital Health Most Wired list. This year, the organization increased its ranking from Level 7 to 8 and became one of only two hospitals in Alabama to achieve Level 8 or higher in both the acute and ambulatory settings.

“Over the last four years DCH has journeyed on a continued path of improvement, strategizing and working together to determine the best ways we can improve our system to deliver the most technologically advanced care possible,” stated Billy Helmandollar, Chief Information Officer of DCH Health System. “Achieving Level 8 was a collaborative effort, and I am confident that we will continue to move the needle forward with Expanse.”

DCH earned Level 8 status on its legacy MEDITECH platform, before going LIVE with Expanse in May of 2021. The organization had highly customized its older electronic medical record to meet their needs. But with Expanse, they didn’t have to, as the solution was already designed around best practice workflows. Helmandollar made a concerted effort to standardize around best practices, limiting deviations.

“MEDITECH Expanse enables us to adopt best practices and workflows across our organization as well as access new tools around patient engagement, analytics, quality, and supply chain,” explained Helmandollar. 

The healthcare organization expects its Patient Engagement score to increase about 15-20% based on new functionalities they have since added to the system, including virtual visits, questionnaires, wayfinding, and virtual waiting rooms. 

Helmandollar also predicts improvement across all Most Wired categories, thanks to its enhanced Expanse functionality and interoperability with other systems.They’ve deployed more advanced analytics through Business and Clinical Analytics dashboards and are improving quality by deploying expert-based workflows for areas like sepsis, CAUTI, fall risk, and antimicrobial stewardship. 

“We now have a benchmark to fully optimize our system and make it the best we can for our patients,” Helmandollar adds. “Our IT department views Most Wired status as a significant motivator, and we take pride that our efforts are paying dividends for improved patient care and outcomes. We’re looking forward not only to Most Wired Levels 9 and 10, but also other industry achievements like HIMSS Stage 7. The possibilities for us are endless.”