German hospital achieves highest level of Electronic Patient Record according to HIMSS Analytics Europe

HIMSS Analytics Europe has granted level 7 of the european EMRAM (Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model) awards to the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany. They are the first hospital in Europe to achieve this highest possible level. The hospital is running the electronic patient record Soarian of Siemens Healthcare. The European EMRAM model is a modified version of the American EMRAM adapted to the specific demands of European healthcare institutions. The German hospital achieved level 6 early 2011 and now they are at level 7. This level means that they not only work fully paperless internally, but that patient information is also exchanged digitally to other healthcare providers and insurance companies.

This achievement shows that the exchange of patient information is definately possible and should be advocated. Although a European report earlier this year showed that the exchange of data digitally between healthcare institutions is still far from widespread in the European Union, the trend is definately in this direction and hopefully examples like this will inspire decision makers and IT managers of other hospitals to 'dare' to go fully digital.

Also see the announcement in Zorgvisie (in Dutch): Zorgvisie - Duits ziekenhuis behaalt hoogste EPD-niveau met Soarian