If healthcare leaders want physicians to adopt a solution, there’s a very simple question they must be prepared to answer: What’s in it for me?
In other words, how is it going to help me do my job — which, of course is to provide quality patient care — in a better, more efficient way? The answer, of course, can’t just be an explanation. Physicians need to see firsthand that the technology in question can, in fact, have a positive impact.
At Inspira Health, a 3-hospital system based in Southern New Jersey, that’s precisely what Tom Pacek’s team did. Rather than spend their energy telling physicians that leveraging an app for self-scheduling could improve access and patient satisfaction, without hindering workflow, they piloted it in cooperation with the vendor, and were able to produce positive outcomes.
“You have to work with doctors,” said Pacek, who recently spoke with healthsystemCIO about how his team was able to pivot quickly when Covid hit, and the strategy they used to educate users. He also spoke about the hackathon that helped spur ideas, and what it takes to lead through a crisis.
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Key Takeaways
* Inspira Health is a 3-hospital system covering a large section of Southern New Jersey.
* The biggest priority when Covid first hit? Getting physicians who had previously been hesitant to adopt telehealth — even if it meant having to offer multiple solutions.
* Inspira partnered with a start-up company to provide remote monitoring devices for chronic care patients, which helped discharge individuals earlier and free up beds for critically ill patients. “That kept us from bursting at the seams,” said Pacek.
* As part of its “hands-on approach” to educating physicians on use of telehealth tools, Inspira got creative by leveraging videos and other training methods. “It was very well-received.”
* A key factor in building adoption of the MyInspira app was in demonstrating, through pilot results, that “it was not as intrusive to their workflow as they thought it would be,” and actually helped reduce time spent in waiting rooms.
Q&A with Inspira Health CIO Tom Pacek, Part 1
Gamble: Can you provide a high-level overview of the organization — what you have in terms of hospitals? Where you’re located, things like that?
Pacek: Sure. We’re located in southern New Jersey, serving patients in five counties. We have three hospitals, 150-plus access points throughout the counties, and more than 1,300 providers. Of those, between 150 and 200 are employed, and the rest are community providers.
We have more than 200 medical residents and fellows in 13 nationally accredited programs at its hospitals in Vineland, Mullica Hill and Elmer, with another 50 coming by the end of 2023. We have around 6,200 employees at this point in time, and we cover a very large territory.
Gamble: In terms of the EHR, are all the hospitals on the same system?
Pacek: They are. We’re all using Cerner Millennium.
Gamble: And that’s been in place for a little while, right?
Pacek: Yes. We’ve been enterprise-wide since February of 2018; our owned ambulatory practices and urgent care centers are on Cerner as well as the hospitals.
Gamble: About a year and a half ago, a little wrench got thrown into things. How did Covid affect your strategy most? What did you focus on initially?
Pacek: Telehealth. We had a service that enabled us to do on-demand telehealth ...
