ChristianaCare Recognized as IT Leader in Both Ambulatory and Hospital Care

(WILMINGTON, Del. – Oct. 6, 2020)

For the fifth consecutive year, ChristianaCare has earned the “Most Wired” designation from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), which assess how effectively healthcare organizations apply core and advanced technologies to improve health and care in their communities.

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ChristianaCare once again earned the award in Most Wired’s acute and ambulatory categories, recognizing healthcare IT excellence in its hospitals as well as its many primary care and specialty practices.

The recognition is the latest accolade that highlights ChristianaCare’s leadership in harnessing data and technology to create a revolutionary, hyper-personalized system of care that engages, responds to and is built around the needs of the people it serves.

“Today, everyone is experiencing telehealth and the use of new technologies to some degree, in ways that they weren’t just a few months ago,” said Randall Gaboriault, MS, chief digital and information officer at ChristianaCare. “But for us, it goes far beyond simply replacing in-person doctor visits with video visits – it’s about reimagining and re-creating the entire experience of care. Across our organization, we have implemented new programs and technologies designed to do just that. Our vision is that all care that can be digital, will be digital, and all care that can be in the home, will be in the home, except that which cannot be.”

ChristianaCare’s success in delivering care through leading-edge technology has been evident throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. ChristianaCare implemented virtual care in 170 practices in a matter of weeks, enabling care to continue throughout the pandemic and beyond.

In addition, ChristianaCare launched a COVID-19 monitoring practice that provides asynchronous as well as synchronous care to people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or are awaiting test results. The program uses secure texting to check in with patients daily, create a risk score, elevate people who have a change in their status to a virtual visit, and then intervene to provide them with additional technology or services in the home or – depending on their needs – bring them in for in-person care. The monitoring practice is powered by CareVio, ChristianaCare’s nationally recognized data-enabled care management program.

“What’s so powerful about this kind of care is that it doesn’t pause between visits,” said Sharon Anderson, R.N., B.S.N., M.S., FACHE, chief virtual health officer at ChristianaCare and president of CareVio. “It’s continual. This is how we’re changing health care through data and technology.”

The program was awarded a $714,000 COVID-19 grant from the Federal Communications Commission to connect underserved populations to virtual care by providing the technology, connectivity and support that they need to use it effectively.

“Our digital future brings about a differentiated capability by merging care delivery and care management into a digitally delivered, exceptional experience for patients across every disease state and socio-demographic status,” Gaboriault said.

This Most Wired recognition is the latest in the panoply of honors that ChristianaCare has received for its use of technology and data. ChristianaCare earned a “Best Places to Work in IT” from IDG’s Computerworld. ChristianaCare’s Information Technology team also played an integral role in ChristianaCare receiving the Magnet Prize from the American Nurses Credentialing Center for positive distraction therapy through virtual reality.

The IT team worked with nurses on the Nursing Quality Monitor application, which was recognized at the American Nurses Association’s National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators Conference as a best practice for efficiency.

Gaboriault and ChristianaCare’s IT team have been recognized with the IT industry’s highest awards, including being a four-time awardee of IDG’s CIO 100 award, a three-time awardee of Computerworld’s Laureate Award and multiple recognitions by InformationWeek, including “Most Innovative Organizations,” and “20 Innovative IT Ideas To Steal.” In 2019, Gaboriault was named to IDG’s CIO Magazine’s Hall of Fame.

CHIME noted that health systems recognized as Most Wired have demonstrated an ability to use their newly developed resources to improve care in their communities in an ever-changing industry. Organizations were also evaluated for their performance in administrative and supply chain, analytics and data management, business and disaster recovery, clinical quality and safety, infrastructure, interoperability and population health, patient engagement and security.

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About ChristianaCare

Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, ChristianaCare is one of the country’s most dynamic health care organizations, centered on improving health outcomes, making high-quality care more accessible and lowering health care costs. ChristianaCare includes an extensive network of primary care and outpatient services, home health care, urgent care centers, three hospitals (1,430 beds), a freestanding emergency department, a Level I trauma center and a Level III neonatal intensive care unit, a comprehensive stroke center and regional centers of excellence in heart and vascular care, cancer care and women’s health. It also includes the pioneering Gene Editing Institute.

ChristianaCare is nationally recognized as a great place to work, rated by Forbes as the 2nd best health system for diversity and inclusion, and the 29th best health system to work for in the United States, and by IDG Computerworld as one of the nation’s Best Places to Work in IT. ChristianaCare is rated by Healthgrades as one of America’s 50 Best Hospitals and continually ranked among the nation’s best by U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek and other national quality ratings. ChristianaCare is a nonprofit teaching health system with more than 260 residents and fellows. With its groundbreaking Center for Virtual Health and a focus on population health and value-based care, ChristianaCare is shaping the future of health care.

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