SEOUL, South Korea – Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH) has reached Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) scale.  It is the first hospital outside of the United States to achieve the Stage 7 designation, and the only hospital in Asia to do so.

The EMR Adoption Model provides a leadership guide for IT adoption in healthcare. The higher the stage, the more advanced the IT application coverts to. Stage 7 represents a totally paperless environment.
 
Only 1 percent of US hospitals rank at the Stage 7 achievement level on the EMRAM. At this stage, care coordination across the hospital is improved using EMR, developing better health information exchanges, and data warehousing for population health improvement. 

The Seoul National University Bundang Hospital reached Stage 7 with:
 
·         Almost all medical orders entered by physicians.
 
·        Ninety percent of physicians enter patient health information into the EHR, using structured templates that generate data, allowing clinical decision support for clinical guidance.
 
·         Efficiency gained through automation, such as relying on only four transcriptionists to support 910 inpatient beds and over 4,000 outpatient visits per day.
 
·         The Medical Imaging department is fully digitized producing 1.2 terabytes of data per month for 70,000 radiologic exams per month.
 
·         The Closed-Loop Medication Administration (CLMA) process has the highest level of patient safety for bar-coded medications through RFID technology
 
·         The hospital uses clinical data warehousing for developing over 250 quality clinical indicators and 98 critical pathways.
 
·         A Health Information Exchange exists between the hospital and 36 private clinics in its region.

"The Seoul National University Bundang Hospital is an excellent example of healthcare IT adoption to improve the quality and efficiency of care while improving patient and employee satisfaction," said John P. Hoyt, executive vice president of Organizational Services at HIMSS. "We congratulate the hospital and its information technology team for creating this environment for its patients, employees and medical staff."

HIMSS Analytics is beginning to collect data on electronic health record implementation from all hospitals in Korea. More information on Stage 7 recognition is available on the HIMSS Analytics website.