DALLAS – July 23, 2012 – UT Southwestern Medical Center's patient-focused technological innovations – including a new smart phone app for health records – helped the institution receive national recognition as one of the "Most Wired" hospitals in the United States.

For the second straight year, UT Southwestern earned a place on the "Most Wired" list, which is distributed annually by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine, the flagship publication of the American Hospital Association.

"This honor recognizes our continuous commitment to leveraging technology to provide the best care possible to our patients," said Dr. Bruce Meyer, executive vice president of health system affairs.

In all, 215 organizations across the country made the 2012 list. Children's Medical Center Dallas, which is affiliated with UT Southwestern as its primary pediatric teaching hospital, also was recognized as a "Most Wired" hospital.

UT Southwestern long has been an early and enthusiastic adopter of new technology designed to enhance the patient's experience, including a switch to electronic medical records that began in 2002. A $10 million donation from Dallas philanthropists William and Gay Solomon spurred UT Southwestern to become the first major medical center in North Texas to implement electronic medical records across all of its clinical practice groups.

In 2005, the medical center introduced the electronic portal MyChart for patients to access their health records. UT Southwestern broadened access to MyChart in the past year, creating a free MyChart app for iPhone, iPad, and Android users. More than 50,000 patients use MyChart to pose questions to physicians, schedule appointments, and refill prescriptions over encrypted, secure connections.

This year, UT Southwestern enabled physicians to access electronic medical records on their iPads, a patient-centered innovation that keeps caregivers at the bedside. Another technological improvement, an online performance management portal for physicians, helps UT Southwestern fulfill its unique role as an academic medical center immersed in both world-class research and nationally recognized patient care.

"With the launch of an online performance management portal for physicians on campus, we now have more opportunities to apply our clinical research in unique and different ways," said Suresh Gunasekaran, associate vice president for health system information resources. "We've also made a lot of progress on data warehousing and analytics."

To compile its "Most Wired" list, Hospitals & Health Networks evaluated hospitals on information technology in four areas: infrastructure, business/administrative management, clinical quality/safety, and clinical integration.

Media Contact: Jeff Carlton

214-648-3404

jeffrey.carlton@utsouthwestern.edu

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