UPMC is Recognized by CIO Magazine as One of the Bold 100
PITTSBURGH, August 15, 2005 — The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) today was named by CIO magazine as a recipient of the 2005 CIO 100 award. The annual award program recognizes organizations around the world that exemplify the highest level of operational and strategic excellence in information technology (IT). This year's award theme is the Bold 100, which recognizes those executives and organizations that embrace great risk for the sake of great reward.
The award underscores UPMC’s expertise in IT as evidenced by its national leadership in the areas of telemedicine, electronic health records and patient safety programming.
“In order to address the numerous challenges in health care, organizations must be innovative and willing to transform their businesses,” said Dan Drawbaugh, UPMC’s chief information officer. “Working outside of traditional thinking, UPMC is combining business intelligence and advanced information technologies to increase efficiencies, improve quality of care and manage consumer demands for better service, while containing rising medical costs. This bold approach will continue to differentiate UPMC both nationally and internationally.”
Recently, UPMC and IBM entered into an eight-year, $402 million joint development agreement to address two of the biggest problems facing health care today: quality and costs. In addition, the two organizations have agreed to invest up to an additional $150 million in developing new products that address difficult quality and patient safety issues. The agreement will not only radically transform health care’s IT infrastructure, but also create new technology solutions in such areas as biosecurity, patient safety and the electronic medical record.
In addition, UPMC has committed approximately $500 million to develop and deploy information technology initiatives. The UPMC electronic medical records initiative, called eRecord, encompasses a broad range of electronic clinical applications that give doctors, nurses and other caregivers the ability to instantly access important patient information. The goal of the initiative is to improve the quality of patient care, reduce medical errors and duplication of services and provide more cost-effective care.
The recipients of this year's CIO 100 award were selected through a three-step process. Companies filled out an online application form detailing their bold practices in both business and IT. Teams of CIO magazine editors and writers reviewed the applications in depth, looking for unique practices and substantial results. Finally, the teams met for a day-long meeting to debate the merits of each nominee and vote on the final 100.
The 2005 CIO 100 awards will be presented at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, Calif., on August 23 at the conclusion of the seventh annual CIO 100 Symposium® and Awards Ceremony.
“The Bold 100 honorees stand out because they have dared to take on risk for the chance of reward in an extremely conservative business climate," said Abbie Lundberg, Editor-in-Chief, CIO. "The executives leading these organizations are smart, inventive and determined.”
UPMC, with more than 40,000 employees and a budget of more than $5 billion, is the largest integrated health care delivery system in Pennsylvania and one of the leading nonprofit medical centers in the country. It is the largest employer in western Pennsylvania. The University of Pittsburgh and affiliated programs attract more than $395 million annually in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, ranking the academic medical center 7th in the nation in 2004. More than 4,000 physicians have privileges at UPMC hospitals, including about 1,950 employed physicians. UPMC spans the full spectrum of health care delivery with its network of 18 tertiary, specialty and community hospitals and 400 outpatient sites and doctors’ offices. For more information on UPMC, visit the web site at www.upmc.com.
Complete coverage of the 2005 CIO 100 awards will be in today’s issue of CIO magazine and available online at www.cio.com .