HIMSS News
Recognizing Quality in Action, HIMSS Announces Winners of the Nicholas E. Davies Awards of Excellence
It’s been 11 years since the establishment of the Nicholas E. Davies Award, which now recognizes healthcare organizations in three categories for implementation of the EHR.
(CHICAGO - October 13, 2005) – Identifying quality in the implementation of health information technology, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) announced the winners of the 2005 Nicholas E. Davies Awards of Excellence in the Organizational, Ambulatory and Public Health categories. The Nicholas E. Davies Award honors healthcare organizations for their excellence in the use and implementation of health information technology (IT).
Organizational Davies Award
Citizens Memorial Healthcare, located in Bolivar, Mo., earned recognition as this year’s sole Organizational Davies Award winner. The integrated rural healthcare delivery system includes one hospital, five long term care facilities, 16 physician clinics and home care services. Located in southwest Missouri between Kansas City and Springfield (Mo.), this chartless healthcare system is the first ever rural health system and the first nonacademic medical center to win the Organizational Davies award. Citizens Memorial opened in 1982 with 53 beds and 90 employees and has grown into an integrated healthcare delivery system with a 74-bed hospital and more than 1,500 employees.
“We are proud to honor Citizens Memorial Healthcare as the first rural health recipient of the Organizational Davies Award,” said Joy Keeler, chair of the selection committee. In selecting the winner of this award, members of the Organizational Davies Committee make site visits to all finalists in this category. “This healthcare system and all of its providers truly serve the rural population with an electronic health record in place today.”
Ambulatory Care Davies Award
Three private practices became the 2005 winners for the Ambulatory Care Davies Award, previously known as the Primary Care Davies Award.
Wayne Obstetrics and Gynecology, with over 6,000 patient encounters a year, is a model of excellence for small provider practices in a rural setting. Situated in Jesup, Ga., this solo practice views its EHR as a distinct asset in the volatile world of obstetrics malpractice.
Southeast Texas Medical Associates opened in 1995 as a single-location, primary-care practice in Beaumont, Texas, with five providers utilizing transcription for documenting medical records. It has since grown to three clinical locations and a fully integrated operational electronic health record system with 24 physicians and a staff of 260.
Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Specialists, a 4-physician practice founded in August 2000, serves the Birmingham, Ala. metro area with a population of slightly more than one million. As the first orthopedic practice to win the Davies award, this specialty group boasts an EHR fully integrated into the busy workflow, including digital x-rays.
“We honored three practices that faced, and overcame, unique challenges when implementing the electronic health record into their operations,” said Diane Carr, associate executive director, healthcare information systems, Queens Health Network, and chair of the Ambulatory Care Davies Award committee. “These clinicians and their staffs have been recognized for introducing an EHR system that benefited both the needs of their patients and the practice itself to provide better care and improved efficiencies in that delivery of care.”
Public Health Davies Award
Now in its second year, the Public Health Davies Award recognized two winners: the North Carolina Bioterrorism and Emerging Infection Prevention System and the Indian Health Services’ (IHS) Clinical Reporting System.
Clinical performance information is critical to improving quality outcomes in healthcare. The Indian Health Services’ Clinical Reporting System is a tool used to collect, report, and evaluate IHS clinical performance across the organization.
Disease surveillance is of great importance, due to the ever increasing biological threat both terrorist and natural. The North Carolina Bioterrorism and Emerging Infection Prevention System (NC BEIPS) is designed to conduct public health surveillance and outbreak detection using near real time state-wide data. The NC BEIPS name was recently changed to the North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiological Collection Tool (NC DETECT)
“Both of these award recipients in the Public Health Davies Award category have taken a huge step to improve care with the implementation of their respective reporting and surveillance systems,” said Steven J. Steindel, PhD, senior advisor for standards and vocabulary, Centers for Disease Control, and chair of the selection committee for this public health award. “All of us on the committee congratulate the members of both teams in the accomplishments achieved with the introduction of technology into their operations.”
About the Davies Award Program
The Davies Award program was originally created by CPRI-HOST in 1995. The program honors Dr. Nicholas Davies, an Atlanta-based practice physician committed to the ideal of improving patient care through better health information management. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine Patient Record Study Committee, which coined the term "computer-based patient record." Dr. Davies was chairperson-elect of the American College of Physicians. In April 1991, he was tragically killed in a plane crash with Senator John G. Tower (R-TX). His ideals live on in the Davies Award of Excellence.
During the 11-year history of the Organizational Davies Award, 22 healthcare organizations have been recognized. The Ambulatory Davies Award, initiated in 2003, has already recognized 10 practices, while the Davies Award of Excellence in Public Health has honored five winners in its first two years.
“The winners of the 2005 Davies Awards of Excellence demonstrate not only the determination and achievements of these healthcare organizations and clinicians, but also, an opportunity that exists for others, to implement health information technology to benefit their system needs and patient base,” said Patricia Wise RN, MSN, MA, vice president, HIMSS EHR Initiatives. “HIMSS congratulates these honorees for their dedication to improving patient care through technology.”
Established for each award, a committee of healthcare clinicians, CIOs and former Davies Award winners select the recipients of the award. More information on the selection process and the Davies Award criteria is available at: http://www.himss.org/ASP/daviesAward.asp.
About HIMSS
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is the healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of human health. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington D.C., and other locations across the country, HIMSS represents approximately 17,000 individual members and more than 275 member corporations that employ more than 1.5 million people. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practices through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to ensuring quality patient care. Visit www.himss.org for more information.
