Healthcare IT News names Homer Warner Center #1

MURRAY – The Intermountain Medical Center Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research is the best hospital information technology department in the nation among large hospitals for the second consecutive year, according to Healthcare IT News, a national medical informatics journal.

Intermountain Medical Center’s Homer Warner Center was named the nation’s top program to work for in the "Where to Work: BEST Hospital IT Departments" program among large hospitals with 351 or more beds throughout the United States, based on a study commissioned by the journal.

Marc Probst, Intermountain Healthcare CIO, said it’s an honor to be recognized for the second consecutive year.
"It's an absolute dedication by our employees to using technology to improve the provision of care," he says. "They know their work is involved in saving many people's lives. Much like our clinicians, they have a similar passion."

Intermountain Medical Center administrator and CEO David Grauer agrees, saying that Intermountain’s medical informatics and IT capabilities help healthcare teams gather and assess lots of complex patient data, enabling them to make treatment decisions based on real-time patient data that is both qualitative and quantitative.

“Intermountain Healthcare has long been a pioneer in this area,” he says. “The depth and breadth of our informatics and IT systems plays an integral role in our ability to provide the very best patient care possible. This is wonderful recognition and validation of the great work happening on this campus and throughout the system.”

Kira Wagner, a quality assurance and outreach analyst at the Homer Warner Center, is an example of the exceptional talent the Homer Warner Center is able to attract because of its growing reputation. She's one of those drawn by its appealing work environment when she graduated from Utah State University in 2011.

"It's a very supportive environment," said Kira. "I have a lot of mentors here who say: 'I'd like to help you learn and grow.'"

In 2011, 179 hospitals were nominated for the award; 75 of those hospitals qualified; and overall 4,945 IT employees completed the extensive 67-question online survey. This year, those numbers skyrocketed: 272 hospitals were nominated, 125 qualified and 10,863 IT employees completed the confidential survey, which was designed to measure statistically exceptional IT departments by assessing IT employees’ satisfaction in seven categories: daily work, immediate team, workplace culture, senior managers, training/development, direct supervisors, and compensation.

The study, conducted by Critical Insights, a market research firm in Maine, concluded that “the most important dimensions that strongly influence employee satisfaction tend to be more subjective, less pragmatic factors such as feeling respected in the workplace, believing that work provides a sense of accomplishment and a meeting of shared goals, having a strong spirit of cooperation and effective communication at work, and having a favorable sense of staff morale.”

"Many of them don't know what a tremendous resource we have here on our campus," said David Grauer, administrator and CEO of Intermountain Medical Center, the system's flagship hospital. "But those who do, understand and appreciate the work they do."

To read Healthcare IT News’ complete report on Intermountain Medical Center’s Homer Warner Center, click http://www.healthcareitnews.com/best-hospitals- 2012/intermountain-claims-top-spot-second-year-row.

Here are the Top 10 programs named by Healthcare IT News:

1.    Intermountain Medical Center Homer Warner Center in Murray, Utah
2.    Tenet Healthcare Corporation in Dallas, Texas
3.    Sharp Healthcare in San Diego, California
4.    Genesis Healthcare in Zanesville, Ohio
5.    Meridian Health in Neptune, New Jersey
6.    Heartland Health in St. Joseph, Missouri
7.    TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee
8.    Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Schaumburg, Illinois
9.    UC Irvine Health in Orange, California
10.  Roper St. Francis Healthcare in Charleston, South Carolina