News Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7/12/2017 12:00:00 AM PACIFIC
Updated: 7/12/2017 11:23:00 AM PACIFIC
For more information, contact Mardi Ford.
Grande Ronde Hospital earns national recognition for patient health technologies
 LA GRANDE (July 11, 2017) – Earning a Most Wired award may give the impression that our employees drink more than our fair share of coffee. In reality, however, Grande Ronde Hospital (GRH) has been named as a 2017 Most Wired – Small and Rural Hospital for our innovations in information technologies designed to improve the patient care experience.

For the second consecutive year, the American Hospital Association (AHA) Health Forum has honored GRH – this year the only hospital in Oregon to achieve this status – and announced the results of their national HealthCare’s Most Wired® survey in a press release on July 10, 2017. 

Only 25 of the 2,146 hospitals (or 1.2 percent) completing the Most Wired survey were in the small and rural classification. The remaining 2,121 (or 98.8 percent) honorees are either part of a larger system or are supported in some way by a larger system. GRH achieved this honor on its own as a small, rural and independent organization. That means something.

“Being recognized by the AHA as a Most Wired – Small and Rural Hospital for the second year in a row is a great honor. Primarily if you meet the criteria in the survey as an independent small and rural hospital. If you have ties with a larger organization, you do not get the ‘small and rural’ designation,” explained Parhez Sattar, GRH’s senior director of information technology. “We are one of a handful in our category in the nation.”

The national survey was conducted in early 2017. It examines how health organizations are using IT solutions to improve value-based health care performance in three areas: infrastructure, business and administrative management; quality and safety; and clinical integration. 

“The importance of the efforts that our great healthcare organization continuously puts forth in the use of information technologies and data analytics are reinforced by this recognition. I believe what makes us stand out are our efficient processes and our ability to analyze vast amounts of data in order to find opportunities for improvements in general patient care and in population health,” said Sattar. 

GRH is continuing its efforts this summer and fall by moving to a fully integrated patient-charting system that will span our entire health system. The end result when the project goes live in October means that GRH patient care staff will have access to a complete and consistent record of patient information no matter where a patient receives care within our system.   

According to the AHA Forum press release, Most Wired honorees have to show how they use technology to make it easier for patients and their providers to interact; thus improving communication, safety and patient-provider relationships. New tools leveraged by Most Wired honorees help patients be actively involved in their care and better at maintaining their health.

“Most Wired hospitals are using every available technology option to create more ways to reach their patients in order to provide improved access to care,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack in announcing the awards. “They are transforming care delivery, investing in new delivery models in order to improve quality, provide access and control costs.” 

Most Wired hospitals are investing in analytics to support new delivery models and effective decision-making and training clinicians on how to use analytics to improve quality, provide access and control costs. Most Wired hospitals are using smart phones, telehealth and remote monitoring to create more ways for patients to access health care services and capture health information.  Most Wired hospitals understand that innovation in patient care embraces emerging technologies and underscores the need for secure patient information exchange.  

###

 

Grande Ronde Hospital, Inc. is a state and nationally recognized and award winning not-for-profit health system that includes a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital and 10 outpatient clinics and one virtual care clinic. We are located in Union County, Oregon, serving our base population of more than 25,000 residents, as well as providing services for the greater Eastern Oregon region. Since 1907, Grande Ronde Hospital has led this region in efforts to stabilize and secure rural health care services for the communities we serve, while also working to improve the quality of life of all our residents. Today we employ more than 700 people, all dedicated to providing quality health care services to our patients. We offer a broad range of diagnostic, surgical and therapeutic outpatient services, a Level IV Trauma Emergency Services Department, a Family Birthing Center; Physical, Occupational and Speech Rehabilitation Therapy and Sports Medicine Services, and Home Care Services providing both home health and hospice care needs. We also operate 11 primary and specialty care clinics: the Cardiology Clinic, the Elgin Clinic, the Hematology & Oncology Clinic, the Neurology Clinic, the ReadyCare Clinic, the Regional Medical Clinic, the Sleep Clinic, the Specialty Clinic (General Surgery, Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, Otolaryngology (ENT), Urology, and Wound/Ostomy Care), the Walk-In Clinic, the Union Clinic, and the Women’s & Children’s Clinic (Gynecology, Obstetrics and Pediatrics). For more information, please visit www.grh.org.

About the Most Wired Survey
The 2017 Most Wired Survey is conducted in cooperation with the American Hospital Association and Clearwater Compliance, LLC.

About the American Hospital Association
The AHA is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the improvement of health in their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which include nearly 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks and other providers of care. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit
www.aha.org.

About Health Forum
Health Forum is a strategic business enterprise of the American Hospital Association, creatively partnering to develop and deliver essential information and innovative services to help health care leaders achieve organizational performance excellence and sustainability. For more information, visit www.healthforum.com.

About Clearwater Compliance, LLC  
Clearwater Compliance, LLC is a leading provider of healthcare compliance and cyber risk management solutions. Its mission is to empower hospitals and health systems to successfully manage healthcare’s evolving cybersecurity risks and ensure patient safety. Exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association, Clearwater solutions have been deployed within hundreds of hospitals and health systems, Fortune 100 organizations and federal government institutions. More information about Clearwater Compliance is at  www.Clearwatercompliance.com.