Knapp Medical Center Receives National Recognition for Information Technology Initiatives

L-R: James A. Summersett III, CEO/President; Ricardo Abreu M.D. and Gary Light, Vice President for Information Technology celebrate Knapp's "Most Wired" recognition.

Knapp Medical Center joined the ranks of a prestigious group on July 7, 2009 by being named one of 25 hospitals throughout the country receiving a "Most Improved" Award by the Hospitals and Health Networks' Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study.
Knapp Medical Center was the only hospital in Texas recognized as having improved the most from the previous year. An additional 100 hospitals or healthcare systems from around the country received the "Most Wired" award.
"It's exciting to be recognized for work that Knapp embarked upon several years ago," James A. Summersett III, CEO/President, said. "The effective use of technology is an important part of the process for improving our patient care."
The purpose of Hospitals & Health Networks' (H&HN) Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study is to promote the effective use of information technology in achieving clinical and operational excellence. Hospitals and health systems are surveyed on their use of information technology to achieve goals related to:

patient safety and quality;
customer service;
business process improvement;
workforce management; and,
disaster readiness.

"Knapp adopted an information technology vision we call "Jerry's Story" back in 2006," Summersett said. "Knapp's vision is written as a story following a 'patient' named Jerry as he accesses information and services through a completely paperless and customer friendly communication system at our hospital."

Gary Light, Vice President for Information Technology, echoes the patient centered goal. "Knapp's vision for how we are implementing information technologies is developed around the patient experience making all information about their care available to their doctors, themselves, and family members, if they choose, from anywhere in the world."
"We recently completed an extensive upgrade of our information systems and have installed Paragon, which serves as the foundation for our Electronic Medical Record (EMR). We've also been working with our physicians to enable these advanced capabilities in their offices and are installing Practice Partner as their EMR."

"Practice Partner provides a sophisticated communication link between the hospital and physician office and even includes the ability for patients to view their records over the internet," Light explained.

Dr. Ricardo Abreu, who served as Chief of Staff last year, was asked to be the physician liaison for information technology improvements at Knapp. He and his partners, Dr. Adolfo Kaplan and Dr. Juan Manuel Ortiz, were one of the first Valley physician offices to fully embrace EMR technology.

"It has always been clear to me that using electronic health records to have immediate access to inpatient and outpatient information is the best way to improve patient care and outcomes. We should use the power of computers to help us prevent errors and be more efficient," Ricardo Abreu M.D., said.

Of the 1,314 hospitals around the country represented in the survey, only five hospitals or healthcare systems in Texas were recognized by H&HN. Knapp Medical Center's "Most Improved" award, was the only such designation for a hospital in the state. This is the first "Most Wired" recognition for Knapp.

Children's Medical Center of Dallas (2 hospitals), Memorial Herman Healthcare System in Houston (11 hospitals), Texas Health Resources in Arlington (13 hospitals) and The Methodist Hospital System in Houston (4 hospitals) all received "Most Wired" awards, and all are past award recipients.

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Knapp Medical Center is the community based, not-for profit hospital serving more than 175,000 people in Weslaco and the surrounding Rio Grande Valley area. Knapp is a 233-bed facility with over 220 physicians, all independent professional practitioners, on the Medical Staff. Knapp employs approximately 1,000 staff and provides opportunities for over 250 volunteers.