The 2013 edition of “Health Care’s Most Wired Survey” was recently released. The survey, sponsored by McKesson Corp, AT&T,  and The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), marks its 15th anniversary this year.

More than 1,700 hospitals—roughly 30% of US hospitals—participated in the survey, which focuses on IT developments and initiatives. Hospitals who can demonstrate meeting certain benchmarks are designated “Most Wired.”

Notable finding’s from this year’s survey include:

  • Nearly 70% of Most Wired hospitals and 60 percent of all surveyed hospitals report that medication orders are entered electronically by physicians. In 2004, only 27% of Most Wired hospitals and 12% of all hospitals did so.
  • More than 70% of Most Wired hospitals have an electronic disease registry to identify and manage gaps in care across a population. Just over half of total responders do this.
  • About 65% of Most Wired hospitals share patient discharge data with affiliated hospitals compared to 49% of the total responders (At Most Wired hospitals, 37% do so with non-affiliated hospitals versus 24% of total responders).

The survey also highlighted hospitals that were using big data analytics to uncover patterns and make more informed decisions.