Case Study: Children’s Hospital of Orange County achieves award‑winning patient safety improvements and reduced readmissions with Cerner EHR

Children’s Hospital of Orange County earns coveted HIMSS Davies for care guidelines, early warning system and more

Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), a 279‑bed pediatric hospital, set out to improve patient safety and demonstrate measurable returns from health IT. The organization faced challenges including reducing infections and readmissions, standardizing care (for example, asthma management and human milk handling), and improving early detection of patient deterioration across non‑ICU settings.

CHOC implemented a robust EHR with embedded evidence‑based care guidelines, discharge alerts to ensure home management plans, centralized and bar‑coded human milk management, a pediatric early warning system (PEWS) and a rapid response team. Those changes earned CHOC the 2016 HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award and produced strong outcomes: asthma length of stay fell 19.6% (2.14 to 1.72 days), 30‑day asthma readmissions dropped 59% (saving an estimated $624,000 annually), non‑ICU code rates went from 0.8 to 0.1 per 1,000 patient days, and the hospital reported up to 373 fewer out‑of‑ICU cardiac arrests and over 1,000 days without a non‑ICU code.

Children’s Hospital of Orange County

James Cappon

Chief Quality Officer