healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders

By Anthony Guerra | Veteran Healthcare IT JournalistBusiness Medicine Health & Fitness Technology Management

healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders episodes

July 07, 2015 Steve Stanic, VP & CIO, Mississippi Baptist Health System, Chapter 3
Career path — From CIO to Perot to CIO
“I like to figure out the problem and be part of working to get it resolved.”
MBHS’ “strong commitment to technology”
Recruiting challenges
Rapidly changing HIT industry
Thoughts on MU — “I like the spirit of the law.”
Weighing the pros and cons
Source: Steve Stanic, VP & CIO, Mississippi Baptist Health System, Chapter 3 on healthsystemcio.com - healthsystemCIO.com is the sole online-only publication dedicated to exclusively and comprehensively serving the information needs of healthcare CIOs.
11 min
July 01, 2015 Patty Lavely, SVP & CIO, Gwinnett Health System, Chapter 1
About Gwinnett Health System
Navigating a major EHR selection process
Strong demo participation — “We’re trying to obtain as much input as possible.”
Acquiring primary care practices
Georgia’s HIE model — “A network of networks”
Challenges of attesting to MU 2 with Horizon
Source: Patty Lavely, SVP & CIO, Gwinnett Health System, Chapter 1 on healthsystemcio.com - healthsystemCIO.com is the sole online-only publication dedicated to exclusively and comprehensively serving the information needs of healthcare CIOs.
17 min
June 30, 2015 Steve Stanic, VP & CIO, Mississippi Baptist Health System, Chapter 2
Patient portals — “The toughest measure to hit.”
His team’s 5-point engagement strategy
Shifting responsibilities
Mississippi Affiliated Network
“We needed a strategy so we’re not always at the mercy of Medicare or Blue Cross.”
Improving throughput — “That’s the name of the game now.”
Source: Steve Stanic, VP & CIO, Mississippi Baptist Health System, Chapter 2 on healthsystemcio.com - healthsystemCIO.com is the sole online-only publication dedicated to exclusively and comprehensively serving the information needs of healthcare CIOs.
11 min
June 29, 2015 Theresa Meadows, SVP & CIO, Cook Children’s Health Care System, Chapter 3
Her pivotal career moment — “I want your job.”
Learning from mentors
“It’s about really listening to what people say.”
Embracing challenges — “I really didn’t know what I was signing up for when I said yes.”
From nursing to technology
Advice for aspiring CIOs — “It’s not about immediate gratification.”
Source: Theresa Meadows, SVP & CIO, Cook Children’s Health Care System, Chapter 3 on healthsystemcio.com - healthsystemCIO.com is the sole online-only publication dedicated to exclusively and comprehensively serving the information needs of healthcare CIOs.
14 min
June 25, 2015 Steve Stanic, VP & CIO, Mississippi Baptist Health System, Chapter 1
About Mississippi Baptist
McKesson clinicals & financials
“Testing” Paragon at a CAH — “Standardize as much as you can.”
Migrating from Horizon to Paragon
Building up the clinician hub — “It’s just like anything else; you can’t get there quick enough.”
Paragon v.13 pilot
Source: Steve Stanic, VP & CIO, Mississippi Baptist Health System, Chapter 1 on healthsystemcio.com - healthsystemCIO.com is the sole online-only publication dedicated to exclusively and comprehensively serving the information needs of healthcare CIOs.
10 min
June 24, 2015 Theresa Meadows, SVP & CIO, Cook Children’s Health Care System, Chapter 2
Theresa Meadows, SVP & CIO, Cook Children’s Health Care System
Twenty years ago, Theresa Meadows took a rather big risk: she said to the CIO at her organization, “I want your job.” The courageous move paid off, and she gained a mentor that helped steer her toward her ultimate goal. Now, Meadows serves as Senior VP and CIO at Cook Children’s, one of just a few integrated pediatric health systems in the country. In this interview, she talks about how Cook Children’s is partnering with vendors to make EHR systems more pediatric-friendly, what they’ve done to dramatically increase portal usage, and the groundbreaking work her team is doing with medical homes. Meadows also discusses the tricky transition from nursing to IT, how her nursing background has helped shape her leadership strategy, and the mistake CIOs can’t afford to make.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

* Pediatric EHRs & the functionality gap
* Partnering with athenahealth & Meditech
* “We really worked hand-in-hand to build that pediatric functionality.”
* Challenges with dosing, growth charts & vaccine schedules
* Harnessing the power of texting
* Innovation in focus — “If we lose sight, nobody will have their eye on the ball.”

LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements
We’ve shared our content. We’ve shared our builds. So hopefully people don’t have to relearn this every time they go through the process, because it takes a village, and to redo something from scratch every time really does not make sense.
Things like growth charts and weight-based dosing and vaccine schedules — those are the things that pediatricians and specialists live and die by. And so not to have those things in the EHR is very frustrating.
As we go through this patient engagement transition, people need information at the right time. It’s great that it’s in a portal and it’s sitting there, but if I don’t need it, I’m not going to go in and look for it.
I encourage my team to always be thinking: is this an innovative approach? Is there a new way to go about this than the standard? But it is hard — it’s very hard, because it is the thing that gets left on the cutting table.
Gamble: It’s interesting what you said about what Athena has done because we’re starting to see some information come out from studies. The Journal of American Medical Informatics Association did a study and more than half of respondents said that EHR systems don’t have the necessary functions for pediatric care. Luckily it looks like the tide is starting to turn, but it seems like this has been a challenge for a while for pediatric organizations.
Meadows: Yes, it’s been a huge challenge and I will site one of my bandwagons that I’ve been on is really trying to partner with our EHR vendors, because the systems are designed for adults — that’s just the larger population of people that use medical care. And so we here at Cook have really made an extra effort to work very closely with our primary EHR vendors to ensure that our pediatric needs are being met.
One of the things that we do here is we meet quarterly with Athena executives and Meditech executives to talk about what things are working well from a pediatric perspective, and what things are not working as well as expected, and how do we work together to help with the design of that content or the design of those needs to ensure that all pediatric providers can benefit from the work that we’ve done. With Athena, we were their first pediatric customer, so a lot of their pediatric knowledge was driven from our implementation. We really worked hand-in-hand with them to build that ...
14 min
June 23, 2015 Ken Deans, VP & CIO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center, Chapter 3
Ken Deans, VP & CIO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center
For the past few years, health systems across the country have been stuck in constant implementation mode, and Chesapeake Regional Medical Center is no exception. So when the organization made the decision to migrate to Epic, leadership decided to leverage the expertise of a seasoned user, which would enable Chesapeake “focus on innovation instead of just putting in systems.” In this interview, Deans talks about his team’s Epic rollout strategy, their big plans with big data, and their “dynamic” multi-year business plan. He also discusses his leadership style, why it’s important to strive for perfect, and why anyone who isn’t nervous about ICD-10 is either “very impressive or naïve.”
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

* From graveyard shift computer operator to CIO
* Leading by example — “I wouldn’t expect anyone to do anything I either haven’t done or wouldn’t do.”
* Keys to staff retention
* Ritz-Carlton & the “obligation” to provide excellent service
* “Don’t lead from behind a desk.”
* Good vs great

LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements
I’ve tried to remain current with the technology piece, even through the years as I’ve moved more into the business realm. Because I know that’s important to those who are in the day to day configuring routers, building database scripts, etc.
Either a person is driven or a person is not. That’s not something that you can influence and it’s not something that you can change. And so if you hire driven folks, irrespective of their current technical acumen, they will probably be able to achieve anything you ask of them, because that’s who they are inside.
We want every outcome to be perfect, but you’ve got to have the right team for that. Once you have that team, you become one of the team members. Everything we do is about we, it’s not about I, and that’s the difference between good teams and not-so-great teams.
The higher you escalate in roles and positions in your career, folks are going to look, listen, and perceive you differently, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about that. Every word you say has a little more power and effect for each higher level position you attain in an organization. As a leader, you’ve got to be mindful of that.
Gamble: I wanted to talk about your strategy when it comes to leadership and keeping the staff engaged, and what leaders do or can do to get people to reach their full potential. I just wanted some of your thoughts in that area.
Deans: I’d say first and foremost, I’ll start with me and then we can talk about the broader staffing and drive and all of that. I came up the ranks working in information technology, first in the Department of Defense arena and then ultimately in healthcare. I graduated to leadership roles starting in the trenches, if you will. My first job was graveyard shift computer operator during my freshman year of college. At that time, it was Honeywell mini mainframes that I worked on, so we’ve advanced quite a ways since that time in the technology space.
So I’ve seen both sides, both management and non-management, and I think my personal style or what I’ve strived for is the simple model that I wouldn’t expect anyone to do anything that I either haven’t done or wouldn’t myself do. I think for me it’s a different way of trying to say the model that I subscribe to is leadership by example. I think that’s the top level.
17 min
June 16, 2015 Ken Deans, VP & CIO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center, Chapter 2
Ken Deans, VP & CIO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center
For the past few years, health systems across the country have been stuck in constant implementation mode, and Chesapeake Regional Medical Center is no exception. So when the organization made the decision to migrate to Epic, leadership decided to leverage the expertise of a seasoned user, which would enable Chesapeake “focus on innovation instead of just putting in systems.” In this interview, Deans talks about his team’s Epic rollout strategy, their big plans with big data, and their “dynamic” multi-year business plan. He also discusses his leadership style, why it’s important to strive for perfect, and why anyone who isn’t nervous about ICD-10 is either “very impressive or naïve.”
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

* Focus on analytics — “Information is what you need to focus on the running the business”
* Enterprise 5-year IT strategic plan
* “Each year you have to reassess it and be willing to move and change.”
* Communication strategy
* Timing of MU & Epic go-live
* ICD-10 – “America is not prepared for it.”

LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements
We have a whole lot of data. What we don’t have a lot of, unfortunately, is information, and there’s a pretty significant difference between the two.
We are anxiously awaiting our implementation just for that perspective. You’ll already have an integrated database on the back end, now it’s putting visual dashboards in front of nearly every user to understand what they themselves, individually, are doing, versus just at the higher level.
You must be as much operationally focused as you are technologically focused, because the two go hand-in-hand today more than they ever have before.
We will forever have Meaningful Use requirements on us going forward. So you wouldn’t have to necessarily time go-lives surrounding that per se, because like accreditation and all the other regulatory requirements we have to meet every day, it’s a forevermore thing.
I’m less worried about the education and more worried about the software and processes that are embedded in the software. And it’s not just any particular software — it’s all the moving parts and components and pieces that healthcare has. That’s really where I think I’m worried.
Gamble: As far as data management, I wanted to talk about some of the work you’ve done there and your strategy for dealing with these huge amounts of data that everyone’s working with. I want to talk about your strategy there.
Deans: If you’re referring to clinical data repositories, that’s a major component for us. Certainly it exists today and we’ve had focused there for quite a while, because I think one of the problems with healthcare is we have a whole lot of data. What we don’t have a lot of, unfortunately, is information, and there’s a pretty significant difference between the two. So we put a lot of emphasis and focus there historically, because information is what you need really to focus on running the business. So with our current partner, we’ve had a clinical data repository in for six to seven years, and we had a bit of one prior to that with the predecessor and have done a lot surrounding that. We’ve tried to make a move toward data analytics and what I would call evidence-based management of the business, beyond just evidence-based clinical efforts. That is paramount to us.
Part of our future-forward movement has included pretty strong requirements whichever way we would have went, and we need to sustain that and, in fact, want to grow it. So we’ve made sure that has been part of our go-forward plans with...
21 min
June 15, 2015 David Bensema, MD, CIO, Baptist Health, Chapter 3
David Bensema, MD, CIO, Baptist Health
As an internal medicine physician, one of the most important lessons David Bensema learned was that if he was going truly engage with a patient, he first needed to establish trust. As CIO, he employs that same strategy to engage with physicians — something that doesn’t always come easy, even for an MD. In this interview, Bensema talks about what has surprised him most during his first year as CIO; the tough part when it comes to creating a task force of the “best and brightest”; and the strategy his team is using to roll out Epic across 7 hospitals. He also discusses why he doesn’t like the word ‘optimization,’ how he keeps the end user’s needs as top priority, and the one thing that needs to change when it comes to CIOs and project planning.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

* Physician engagement
* “We don’t get relationships sitting in offices. You have to get out.”
* Lessons learned in change management
* Biggest surprises about becoming a CIO
* Anticipatory staffing — “It’s not a sustainable model.”
* Learning project management as an executive medical director
* Coming to Baptist in 2001 — “I knew I’d found home.”

LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements
They’re not upset really with you — they’re upset with change. They’re upset with the disruption they’re seeing in multiple levels in their practices. And you have to just let them go through it.
Their concern for patient safety and the quality of care that our patients experience I would say rivals that of anyone at the bedside. I am just overwhelmed by the commitment of the staff.
Anticipatory staffing is lacking in the IT world. We just keep getting projects thrown in without increment in staff. That’s not a sustainable model.
Just because you found the perfect practice to acquire or just because you found the perfect site to put some people, doesn’t mean you’re there. Negotiating the lease is just the beginning.
On my first day, I said, ‘You all have to understand, I’m a kindergartener. I don’t know much. Please teach me. Every day, teach me. If you start to use a term assume I don’t know what it means.’
Gamble: With the work you did with physician engagement, was there anything that kind of sticks out to you that could be helpful to CIOs just as far as maybe some of the lessons you learned or just any takeaways from that as far as just what it took to get through that change management piece with physicians.
Bensema: I go right back to being an internal medicine physician and when I walked in a room with a new patient I knew what the priority was. It was that patient; developing a relationship of trust was the priority to make sure that patient was well taken care of. It’s the same with my physician colleagues. To engage the physicians you need a relationship, and we don’t get relationship sitting in offices. In a system like ours, I don’t get a relationship sitting in Louisville at the headquarters. You’ve got to get out, and that’s really hard.
To your point about CIOs having a lot on their plate, it is really hard, but if you don’t make that effort, they’re not going to assume it’s that important. So I get around to the physician staff meetings. I get around out on the floors. I make sure that people know me face-to-face if they want to chew on me, because my physician colleagues do when you go out and you represent IT. My wife’s a practicing pathologist and she said when I went into administrative roles,
14 min
June 11, 2015 Ken Deans, VP & CIO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center, Chapter 1
Ken Deans, VP & CIO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center
For the past few years, health systems across the country have been stuck in constant implementation mode, and Chesapeake Regional Medical Center is no exception. So when the organization made the decision to migrate to Epic, leadership decided to leverage the expertise of a seasoned user, which would enable Chesapeake “focus on innovation instead of just putting in systems.” In this interview, Deans talks about his team’s Epic rollout strategy, their big plans with big data, and their “dynamic” multi-year business plan. He also discusses his leadership style, why it’s important to strive for perfect, and why anyone who isn’t nervous about ICD-10 is either “very impressive or naïve.”
Chapter 1

* About Chesapeake Regional
* Migrating to Epic
* Flexibility with go-live — “We’re not trying to meet a date for the sake of meeting a date.”
* Epic Connect model with Good Help Inc.
* Biweekly meetings – “We want to be nimble.”
* Focus on workflow and process improvement
* “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”

LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements
It’s a date that we’ve put out there as a target. I think our intent and goal is to go live when it’s time, it’s appropriate, and we’re ready to go live. We’re not trying to meet a date for the sake of meeting the date.
Putting in systems is painful. It’s burdensome. It’s cumbersome. It’s exciting as well, but it detracts from some of the business focus.
Our executive suite and the board really value technology as an investment, not necessarily as an expense, and there is a pretty big differentiation there. We understand that it’s one of the keys to business success in our industry.
We wanted to be a little more nimble than that, so that’s where the biweekly model comes into play. We can react pretty quickly.
Even though I’d say, much to our chagrin, we’re seasoned pros with implementation, this really is a different model for us that we’re rather accepting of and pretty excited about.
Gamble: Hi Ken, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
Deans: Thanks for having me.
Gamble: Sure. To get things started, can you talk a little bit about Chesapeake Regional — what you have in terms of the hospitals and some of the other services, and where you’re located?
Deans: Chesapeake is in the lower southeastern corner of the state of Virginia. We are an independent health system. We’re actually what’s known as in the Commonwealth of Virginia as a hospital authority. That means our organization was created through an act by the state legislature nearly 40 years ago now. And so our board of trustees is a little bit unique in that it is appointed by the city council from the City of Chesapeake. So we have a quasi-government touch point from that perspective, but from there down, the organization is its own full 401c3 nonprofit organization. We’re located here in Chesapeake, a coastal community consisting of a medical group and a core hospital with all the typical services you would find surrounding a medical center — home care, hospice, nursing care, etc. We’re a really robust, family-friendly, very community-oriented nonprofit organization here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Gamble: How many beds in the hospital?
Deans: 310 beds.
Gamble: As far as seasonal volume, does that impact you at all?
Deans: Believe it or not, not so much. We are a co-owner of a hospital down in the outer banks area of North Carolina, which is owned by a close neighbor, Vidant Health. That organization really is in a travel area, so they do see a fair amount of seasonal volume. But for our organization, we have a pretty constant volume.
17 min

About healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders

From the publisher's feed

Candid journalism and leadership insights for the modern Hospital CIO. healthsystemCIO is the definitive resource for Health System executives navigating Cybersecurity, AI Governance, and Digital…

Share healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders

Sign up to save your podcasts

healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders

healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders episodes

About healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders

More shows like healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders

Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing

The Daily