CAMH achieves HIMSS Stage 7, the highest level

TORONTO – The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has become the first Academic Health Science Centre and second hospital ever in Canada to be awarded a Stage 7 designation by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

HIMSS is a non-profit organization that assesses the effectiveness of hospital Information Technology systems around the world. The Stage 7 designation is the highest possible rating and represents a near paperless clinical environment with technology that supports optimized patient care.

There are only about 300 hospitals with the Stage 7 designation, representing less than 5% of hospitals world-wide.

“We take great pride in being a global leader in healthcare information technology,” said CAMH president and CEO Catherine Zahn. “As a hospital that delivers care to patients with highly acute and complex conditions, it is vitally important that all our clinical staff have medical records at their disposal, at all times. Better, faster and easier access to information means better patient care.”

CAMH has transformed its clinical practice through the use of technology by launching a new electronic medical record called I-CARE, implementing protocols for computer-assisted medication administration and introducing electronic whiteboards to provide timely and the most relevant information for patient care.

“Achieving Stage 7 marks our commitment to leveraging technology and data to achieve the highest quality and safest care for our patients,” says Damian Jankowicz, VP, information management at CAMH.

As part of the Stage 7 validation, the HIMSS team visited a number of inpatient units and departments to view firsthand how CAMH clinicians use the electronic medical record to support patient care. “The key question posed by HIMSS was about the impact our IT transformation had on client care,” says senior portfolio manager Heather Sulkers. “We were not only able to demonstrate tremendous reduction in potential medication errors but also many other ways our enhancements to electronic medical record keeping are helping produce better outcomes for the wide variety of illnesses we treat at CAMH.”

In one project, CAMH embarked on an initiative to improve scanning rates during medication administration, as hospital staff scanned patient identification and medications before giving patients their medications. The hospital developed a weekly dashboard to track scanning rates and shared it with inpatient managers, leadership and frontline staff interacting with patients.

Using data from the clinical information system, the dashboard measured various interventions, such as targeted education, competency validation, and resolution of technology challenges and barriers.

The CAMH hospital staff engaged with patients, as well, as part of this initiative, resulting in ongoing and increased scanning of patient identification and medication that corresponded with a decrease in potential medical errors. Each month, units at CAMH received certificates of achievement recognizing their efforts to improve patient safety. Most importantly, CAMH achieved its goal of clinical staff scanning patient identification and medications at least 95% of the time in December 2016.

About The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada’s largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, as well as one of the world’s leading research centres in its field. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental health and addiction issues. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. For more information, please follow @CAMHnews on Twitter.