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NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is ranked No. 6 on this year's InformationWeek Elite 100 — a list of top business technology innovators in the U.S. The hospital was specifically recognized for its use of an innovative patient tablet, designed to empower patients and their providers and improve the quality of health care delivery with the latest technology. NewYork-Presbyterian is the only hospital to rank in the top 10 of the Elite 100.

Patient tablets at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital let patients communicate with their care team and quickly access their health information.

When patients are admitted to the hospital, they are often inundated with complex medical information. Patients may also face difficulty communicating their needs to their care team due to antiquated call bell systems used by most hospitals across the country. NewYork-Presbyterian set out to address these challenges and increase patient engagement by providing a Windows 8 tablet at the patient's bedside. The tablets, equipped with two custom-built Windows 8 apps, enable patients to seamlessly communicate with their care team and quickly access their health information on the MyNYP.org portal, built on Microsoft HealthVault.

The tablet program was recently piloted on two nursing units with a total of 69 beds. Hospital staff teach patients how to use the tablets, which enable them to view key information about their hospital stay such as the medications they are receiving, lab results and photos of their care team. Patients can also call for the nurse directly from the tablet, electronically record their pain levels and ask questions to their care team. In addition to the hospital-specific features, the patient can access the internet, their email, and free entertainment. The hospital's long-term goal is to provide a bedside tablet for every patient.

"The tablets allow our patients to connect directly with members of their care team," said Dr. Steven J. Corwin, chief executive officer of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. "They will help to dramatically improve communication between patients and their care providers and help patients become fully engaged in their own health and recovery. When patients are engaged, better outcomes result, so the tablets truly complement our existing efforts to improve the patient experience."

The tablet program has also helped NewYork-Presbyterian improve administrative efficiency and cost. The tablets integrate the hospital's existing nurse call bell system into its more robust data network to offer the expanded features. By reusing its existing infrastructure, NewYork-Presbyterian is spending less than $500,000 on software development, whereas a significant nurse call system upgrade could cost close to $40 million.

Additional details on the InformationWeek Elite 100 can be found online at http://www.informationweek.com/elite100.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is one of the nation's largest and most comprehensive hospitals, with some 2,600 beds. In 2012, the Hospital had nearly 2 million inpatient and outpatient visits, including 12,758 deliveries and 275,592 visits to its emergency departments. NewYork-Presbyterian's 6,144 affiliated physicians and 20,154 staff provide state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine at six major centers: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division and NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital. One of the most comprehensive health care institutions in the world, the Hospital is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area and is consistently ranked among the best academic medical institutions in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. The Hospital has academic affiliations with two of the nation's leading medical colleges: Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. For more information, visit www.nyp.org.

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