CHICAGO – The 2009 Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study opens online Thursday.

The survey, which is open to all hospitals and health systems, measures hospital IT activities in five key areas: business processes, customer service, safety and quality, workforce and public health and safety.

The Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study is conducted annually by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine.

In addition to the "100 Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems," the magazine releases lists of the 25 "Most Improved," "Most Wireless" and "Most Wired - Small and Rural" hospitals. According to the magazine, the lists are based on a detailed scoring process of the self-reported survey data.

Last year at the 2008 Physician-Computer Connection Symposium, physician IT leaders discussed the importance of the "Most Wired Hospitals" list and disagreed about whether such rankings are useful or simply a marketing tool for hospitals.

One physician at the conference speculated that a possible way to avoid criticism of the survey's integrity would be for Hospitals & Health Networks to take a "Consumer Reports approach" and not allow survey participants to use the Most Wired label in marketing material.

After hearing this comment, a handful of chief medical information officers admitted that their hospitals would probably not participate in the Most Wired survey if they were not allowed to use the results in marketing campaigns.

Healthcare IT News was flooded with mail from survey participants after it released this story.

" ... the bottom line is that the Most Wired Survey is certainly not perfect but it's not pure 'fluff' either," said Vince Vitali, vice president and CIO of BroMenn Healthcare, which was named the winner of the Top 25 Most Improved in 2008.

"Receiving awards is nice, but not the reason we are in this field," said Furley Lumpkin, director of information technology for Eastern Regional Medical Center.

The deadline for this year's submissions is March 15, 2009.

Winners will be named in July.