Orlando Health earns unprecedented highest ranking on three awards for innovative digital transformation of its healthcare system

Orlando, FL (December 15, 2023) Orlando Health has earned the highest ranking from three internationally recognized healthcare technology associations for innovative digital transformation of its healthcare system.

“While the awards are exemplary, it is what they represent that is truly gratifying,” said Novlet Mattis, SVP and chief digital and information officer. “Each award is the culmination and sum total of hundreds of smaller successes and wins within IT/CE, which yield significant advancements for Orlando Health as a healthcare leader, where our clinicians and administrators utilize the digital technologies at the highest levels to care for our patients and enable the organization’s successes.”

The three awards are:

College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) ranked Orlando Health a Level 10 – a perfect score – in two categories, acute and ambulatory services, in its 2023 Digital Health Most Wired Survey. This year, more than 55,000 healthcare facilities were evaluated on how well they applied advanced technologies to improve patient safety and outcomes. Only 19 of these healthcare systems achieved this top honor in both the acute and ambulatory setting. 

“While Orlando Health has consistently scored among the top health systems for implementing technology, this is its first time we have received the top rating,” said Tom Maroney, MBA, PhD, senior data scientist, Orlando Health, who facilitated the survey submission process. “Additionally, auditors highlighted several areas where Orlando Health is leading globally, and we may have an opportunity to present on these topics at a CHIME annual conference in the future.”

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) designated Orlando Health with its highest ranking as a “Stage 7” organization. The ranking is part of HIMSS’ electronic medical record adoption model (EMRAM) program and indicates that a healthcare organization is at the forefront of comprehensive health record adoption and delivering high-quality patient care as a result.

“This recognition acknowledges not just IT/CE’s deployment of Epic and other clinical systems across the organization, but also the degree to which our staff and clinicians are embracing those technologies and using them to drive best possible patient outcomes,” said Eric Rose, senior director, Enterprise Quality & Performance Solutions, IT/CE.

Epic’s Gold Stars Award – a Level 10 and highest recognition tier– places Orlando Health among the top four percent of over 600 healthcare organizations that use the comprehensive health records system. The Gold Stars program helps Epic client organizations identify system features they can use to improve their clinical and financial outcomes and ultimately the patient experience. By providing a list of Epic’s core features that drive best practices along with a snapshot of the client’s current system and feature usage, the Gold Stars initial evaluation becomes a roadmap for optimizing the use of Epic.

“Following the prior year’s review by Epic, we had a list of 30 remaining criteria to meet if we wanted to achieve the highest level of functionality that the system was capable of being configured to earn the highest recognition tier,” said Sherry Buxton, AVP, Clinical Products. “We chose to go for it. The Epic team was incredibly focused and dedicated to not only implement the features, but trained and supported clinicians and administrators to use the features, enabling us reaching this next level. I’m proud of how they worked together to make this happen.”

About Orlando Health

Orlando Health, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is a private, not-for-profit healthcare organization with $9.6 billion of assets under management that serves the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico.

Founded more than 100 years ago, the healthcare system is recognized around the world for Central Florida’s only pediatric and adult Level I Trauma program as well as the only state-accredited Level II Adult Trauma Center in Pinellas County. It is the home of the nation’s largest neonatal intensive care unit under one roof, the only system in the southeast to offer open fetal surgery to repair the most severe forms of spina bifida, the site of an Olympic athlete training facility and operator of one of the largest and highest performing clinically integrated networks in the region. Orlando Health has pioneered life-changing medical research and its Graduate Medical Education program hosts more than 350 residents and fellows.

The 3,429-bed system includes 29 hospitals and emergency departments – 25 of which are currently operational with four coming soon. The system also includes nine specialty institutes, skilled nursing facilities, an in-patient behavioral health facility under the management of Acadia Healthcare, and more than 375 outpatient facilities that include physician clinics, imaging and laboratory services, wound care centers, home healthcare services in partnership with LHC Group, and urgent care centers in partnership with FastMed Urgent Care. More than 4,750 physicians, representing more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties have privileges across the Orlando Health system, which employs more than 27,000 team members and more than 1,500 physicians.

In FY 23, Orlando Health cared for 197,000 inpatients and 6.6 million outpatients.  The healthcare system provided nearly $1.3 billion in total impact to the communities it serves in the form of community benefit programs and services, Medicare shortfalls, bad debt, community-building activities and capital investments in FY 22, the most recent period for which this information is available.

Additional information can be found at http://www.orlandohealth.com, or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @orlandohealth.