Hospitals are becoming more wired, AHA survey reports
While capital expenditures rose, the study found that the gap between the country's "most wired" and "less wired" health systems has increased.
By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. Aug. 26, 2002.
Hospitals and health systems around the country are increasingly deploying Internet technologies to improve care and connect physicians and patients, according to one survey.
The 2002 Most Wired and Benchmarking Study found that the gap between the country's "most wired" and "less wired" hospitals and health systems has increased as the former build on their head start of previous years and expand the clinical information technology services they offer to physicians, nurses and patients, said Alden Solovy, executive editor and associate publisher of the American Hospital Assn.'s Hospitals and Health Networks, which conducted the survey.
About 306 organizations representing 794 hospitals, or 14%of the country's hospitals, responded to the survey. Of those, 100 were named to the magazine's annual list of the most wired because they have widely implemented and devoted significant resources to Internet technologies to connect to doctors, nurses, patients, health plans, suppliers and employees.
"The less wired are essentially those organizations that completed the survey but did not make our 100 most wired list," Solovy said.
While the most wired by definition are further ahead than the less wired, the survey also found that the latter are making an effort to catch up. From 2000 to 2002, capital expenditures by the less wired hospitals rose 4.5% compared to 2.6% for the most wired, the survey said.
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