Essentia’s acute and ambulatory settings are certified level 9, meaning we reside in the top 1% of organizations that were graded. 

In fact, only 107 of the more than 36,000 graded organizations were awarded level 9 or 10 designation, according to Chuck Watson, Essentia’s chief information officer. Our outstanding ranking stems from how well we implement updates to the functionality of our electronic medical record, Epic, which is a popular and pervasive software solution for health care systems. 

“The CHIME Most Wired award recognizes the incredible investment Essentia has made to implement a flexible and future-proof infrastructure that will power the next generation of patient care,” said Abhi Devireddy, infrastructure architecture manager at Essentia. “Combining innovative ideas with industry-leading technology has allowed us to develop and deploy unique ways to care for the communities we are privileged to serve.” 

Highlighting our forward-thinking approach to technology was Essentia’s adoption of virtual visits. Prior to March 2020, Essentia had never conducted a virtual visit. But in a robust response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we rolled out that option swiftly and were performing more than 3,500 per day within weeks. Within a year, we had done more than 400,000 virtual visits. 

“It is an honor that CHIME has recognized Essentia Health in how we use technology to improve the safety, quality and overall experience for our patients,” said Nicole Pavlovich, senior project manager for information systems at Essentia. “Essentia has accomplished a significant shift in the past year to move to a virtual health care world, with the impressive expansion of E-Visits and telehealth services. This recognition is encouragement for our teams to continue advancing technology for our patients across our system.”