FARMINGTON — The Information Technology department at Franklin Memorial Hospital has been named among the nation’s first-ever “Where to Work: Best Hospital IT Departments,” according to the Healthcare IT News’ Dec. 7 issue, a publication of MedTech Media.

The FMH department was ranked third in the small hospital category and was the only Maine hospital selected.

Critical Insights, a market research company based in Portland, was selected by Healthcare IT News to create and administer a statistically valid program that would identify exceptional hospital IT workplaces. The process included a nomination period, followed by a confidential, online 67-question employee survey in which at least half of the department’s staff had to complete, and, finally, a data-analysis period to determine the top hospitals.

Departments considered were graded in seven categories: day-to-day work, IT team, management, hospital leadership, workplace culture, training and development, and compensation. Overall, 179 hospitals were nominated for the awards.

The hospital’s IT staff include Ralph Johnson, chief information officer; Bill Colwell, RN, director of information services; Kathy Horton, RN, manager of clinical applications; Chuck Pritchard, senior project manager; Frank Hosea, business systems analyst; Wayne Moody, business systems analyst; Dee Robinson, LPN, clinical documentation specialist; Gearry Judkins, senior network administrator; Patrick O’Brien, network administrator; Zebulon Luce, network administrator; Israel Roy, network administrator; Geordan Brown, network administrator; Maureen McCool, database analyst; Catherine White, clinical systems analyst; Muriel Armstrong, clinical systems analyst; Julie Welch, clinical systems analyst; Pat Chick, RN, clinical systems analyst; and Denise Ouellette, RN, clinical systems analyst.