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November 16, 2011
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At a Glance |
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CHIME Notes |
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Welcome to the November edition of the CHIME healthcare IT executive newsletter. This publication helps readers stay up-to-date on what is happening in the industry. CHIME is the professional association for chief information officers and other senior healthcare IT leaders. CHIME enables its members and business partners to collaborate; exchange ideas; develop professionally; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. Read on to find out what 1,400 healthcare CIOs already know, CHIME is the CIO’s voice in the industry.
Learn more.
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CHIME News |
CHIME11 Addresses the Tough Issues Facing CIOs
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The CHIME11 Fall CIO Forum, setting yet another record with nearly 700 in attendance, provided an abundance of educational opportunities and perspectives on the mounting issues facing the CIO community, from MU attestation to ICD-10.
Held at the JW Marriot Hill Country Resort in San Antonio, Texas, CHIME11 welcomed four riveting keynote speakers who shared various views on technology and healthcare.
Opening keynote speaker Clayton Christensen |
Wednesday morning’s opening keynote speaker Clayton Christensen, author and professor at Harvard’s Business School, discussed the disruptive nature of technology as it relates to healthcare.
Christensen said technology must fill an important role in decentralizing healthcare, as the nation looks to bring down its cost.
“Innovation drove centralization in healthcare. In adding all that capability, they overshot what customers with mainstream disorders can use in the hospital, but we have to build the hospital to provide for everything,” he said. “We need to disrupt the system; we need to bring technology to outpatient clinics so we can do the simplest of the things. Need to bring technology to clinics, doctors’ offices and homes. We need to drive technology so physicians can do
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what specialists do now.
“Rather than expecting expensive forms of technology to become cheap, we need to drive technology so that less expensive sources of care can be used,” Christensen continued. “If we don’t do this, there isn’t a solution to America’s healthcare crisis.”
Healthcare cost relief also will involve enabling Americans to opt for lower cost caregivers and venues of care, and providers will need business model innovation to achieve simplification, he said.
Following Christensen on Wednesday was the Honorable Michael O. Leavitt, former secretary of Health and Human Services and former governor of Utah, who discussed information technology’s role in making our nation’s healthcare system more efficient and less costly.
Leavitt said economic and other pressures will force the U.S. to make changes in how healthcare is provided, and to counteract “dispassion” in the system, healthcare organizations will need to form networks of cooperation and innovate in ways that produce value.
“This is not just about the technology,” he said. “This is about sociology, about getting people to talk to each other in
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Honorable Michael O. Leavitt
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the same way we get computers to talk. Leaders in healthcare will have to have a high collaborative IQ. They will have to be able to organize collaborative solutions.
“People in the hospital system need to know what you know about building collaborative networks. We’re talking about real change; it is a moment in human history that requires real change. This is a moment for those in the healthcare sector to begin to lead. The way to prosper in the next decade and beyond is to lead, to become an innovator. “
A town hall session devoted to ICD-10 also took the stage in San Antonio where hospital executives charged with implementing the new coding system in their facilities told attendees about the importance of lining up support for the transition and incorporating multi-disciplinary and executive champions.
Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego has been working on the ICD-10 transition for more than two years, but realizes that the lion’s share of the work still lies ahead, said panelist Albert Oriol, Rady Children’s CIO. “We’re on the way, but we’re not seeing the finish line by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.
The CIO must be involved in the ICD-10 transition process, but must realize that he or she needs other key leaders to gain the necessary organization-wide support, said panelist Carole McEwan, project manager for ICD-10 at SSM Health Care, a hospital system that operates facilities in four states in the Midwest. “The optimal role for the CIO is he should be a key leader, a key enabler. He needs to co-own the transition, but he or she also needs the clinical and revenue cycle ownership as well.”
Travis Broome, health insurance specialist for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services clarified several aspects of the stimulus funding program during a special MU Stage 2 sunrise session on Thursday, including further guidance for those organizations that have attested to meaningfully using electronic health records systems.
Specifically, he said that for those organizations that have attested to achieving Stage 1 during federal fiscal year 2011, which ended on September 30, will be able to use the same timeline as if they had attested in fiscal year 2012. That would provide an extra year of stimulus fund payments for early attesters, Broome said.
The new approach is based on a suggestion from the HIT Policy Committee, he said, and contradicts guidance that providers had previously been given to wait an extra year to attest to achieving meaningful use objectives. “This flips that logic on its head,” Broome said. “So if you start early, you get that extra year of payment.”
Broome also stated that Stage 2 requirements will be out in January.
Other educational events at the Forum were well-attended and popular. CHIME Foundation Firms held in excess of 70 Focus Groups on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. In addition, members packed 16 educational track sessions led by their peers on Thursday to glean useful best practices on various healthcare IT topics; from strategy and leadership to organizational performance improvement.
Craig Schiefelbein |
To close out the Forum on Friday were keynotes from authors Craig Schiefelbein and Sir Ken Robinson.
Schiefelbein, who wrote Get Out of I.T. While You Can, explained that the title of his book doesn’t mean the CIOs in the room should change careers. Rather, he provided thought-provoking insights and urged attendees to do a job that “makes the world a better place.”
CIOs can get stuck in a model of handling tactical problems, and not spending time and effort with the larger strategic issues of their organization. They, and their reports, need to focus on those larger issues that can provide a bigger impact to their organizations than just keeping networks and hardware up and running.
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Mentoring is key, and IT staffs need to feel that they work in healthcare, not just in IT, Schiefelbein said.
Creativitiy expert Sir Ken Robinson, who closed the conference, gave attendees advice for how to get into their “element.”
Robinson said the world is moving quickly, and for people to understand their passion takes introspection and self-examination - and technology doesn’t always enable that capability.
“A lot of the technologies intended to save us time have generated more tasks for us to do,” he said.
That speed of life gets in the way of allowing people to deeply study what they enjoy and to have the chance “to think differently about ourselves.” His latest book, The Element, contends that many people don’t enjoy the things they do for livelihood because they’re not exercising their talents.
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Closing keynote Sir Ken Robinson
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“There is a myth we believe that we plan our lives, that our lives are linear,” Robinson said. “Our resumes convey the idea that we’ve planned our lives. Life is not linear; it is creative, it is organic. We have the gift of imagination – we can create and we can imagine.”
Before the Forum officially kicked-off, CHIME held its recreational events with golf, paintball and a riverwalk tour of San Antonio. As part of CHIME’s “Giving Back” program, Forum attendees also joined sponsor Vitalize Consulting Solutions to take part in sorting food products and preparing meals for the San Antonio Food Bank. Additionally, participants in the CHIME11 Fun Run raised $600 for the San Antonio chapter of the Special Olympics.
Board Chair Lynn Vogel entertains
the crowd during the closing reception
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The Certified Healthcare Chief Information Officer (CHCIO) examination drew its largest group ever with 39 test-takers on Tuesday afternoon. On Friday morning, members from the CHCIO Program hosted a workshop on the certification process. Lead by Gary Barnes, FCHIME, CHCIO and current chair of the
CHIME Certification Committee, panelists discussed what it was like to take the exam and the study materials they used to prepare.
CHIME also welcomed 54 attendees to the 17th offering
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of the Healthcare CIO Boot Camp, which took place just before the Forum. The program’s unique mix of lecture, interactivity, coaching, mentoring and networking opportunities offered a tremendously valuable and rewarding learning experience.
For more CHIME11 highlights visit http://chimefallforum.wordpress.com.
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Quarter of CHIME CIOs Report Their Organizations Have Qualified for MU Stimulus Funding
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 According to a recent survey by CHIME, 26 percent of CIOs say their organizations have qualified to receive stimulus funding under HITECH in the first full year of the program.
Of all respondents, 13 percent say their organizations have actually received funding in the first year of the program, which began October 1, 2010. Most (9 percent) collected funding from their states’ Medicaid programs, while 4 percent received payments under the Medicare program.
The 198 of CHIME members who responded to the September survey represent 656 hospitals, or about 13 percent of the nation’s facilities.
In general, members were optimistic about their chances of qualifying for stimulus funds in Stage 1. About two-thirds (68 percent) say they expect to qualify for stimulus funding for Stage 1 of the program, but not until federal fiscal year 2012 (which ends September 30, 2012) or fiscal year 2013.
About 93 percent of CIOs expect their organizations to achieve the meaningful use of electronic health records and incentive funding for Stage 1 during the first three years of the program.
More than half of all respondents said their organizations have registered for the stimulus funding program, a precursor for attesting that meaningful use objectives have been achieved and qualifying to receive funds. By contrast, only 15 percent of facilities had registered in March, when CHIME conducted its last survey on meaningful use.
CIOs’ concerns continue to evolve as the stimulus funding program completed its first year of operation. For example, nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents still have concerns related to meeting meaningful use requirements; down significantly from the nearly 90 percent of respondents who said they had such concerns in March. Capturing and submitting data for quality measures remains the most frequently cited concern of CIOs.
Organizations that have qualified for stimulus funding also expressed concerns about the uncertainty over time delays in receiving payments after they have successfully attested to achieving meaningful use of electronic health records.
For example, Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis is still awaiting payment through the program after attesting on August 18, said Joanne Sunquist, its CIO, who added that payments generally have been received by other facilities six to eight weeks after facilities have attested. “It would be nice to know, because any time you’re looking for government money for anything, cash flow is often uncertain,” she said.
Medical Center Health System, Odessa, Texas, received payment through the Texas Medicaid program in August, said CIO Gary Barnes, FCHIME, CHCIO. Better communication about the stimulus funding program is essential in helping healthcare organizations gain access to funding, he said, adding, “the $1.5 million in stimulus payments are critical to Medical Center Health System, and are actually important in helping us to operate in the black.”
Other survey findings include:
- Respondents appear to be settling into their implementation strategies to achieve the meaningful use of electronic
health records. Some 58 percent now say their current IT strategy and existing applications will enable their organizations
to qualify for meaningful use, compared with 40 percent in March.
- Respondents believe a delay in the beginning of Stage 2 of the meaningful use program would increase their
likelihood of qualifying for stimulus funding in that phase. Some 25 percent of respondents said they hope to achieve
Stage 2 meaningful use objectives, but only if there is a delay in the original start date of October 1, 2012. Some
32 percent said they expect their organizations to achieve Stage 2 objectives, with or without a delay; and 35 percent
said they couldn’t make a prediction at this time.
- Some 34 percent of respondents said they had lingering questions about the program. Many of those questions
revolve around whether funding for the program will be maintained despite the changing political winds in Washington
and in the face of budget cuts anticipated to achieve reductions in the federal budget deficit.
To access a copy of a report on the latest CHIME survey, please go to http://www.cio-chime.org/advocacy/CHIME_MU4_Survey_Report.pdf.
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CIO Dedra Cantrell Named CHIME 2011 Innovator of the Year
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Innovator of the Year Winner Dedra Cantrell poses with CHIME Board Chair Lynn Vogel and CHIME President and CEO Rich Correll in San Antonio
For Emory Healthcare, having a highly integrated and coordinated approach to registering patients was crucial to maximizing the efficiency of care and delivering the best patient experience. Its solution, called Global Patient Registration, helps set the entire process in motion.
Dedra Cantrell, Emory’s CIO, directed development of the application, which the Atlanta-based healthcare organization calls the single source of truth for patient registration data. Cantrell’s role in the project earned her CHIME’s 2011 Innovator of the Year Award.
The Global Patient Registration (GPR) application consists of several layers that include existing applications, surrounding application development, new third-party products and the introduction of new services to move data quickly and effectively.
As Cantrell and her team began to study the registration process and separate systems’ need for data, it found that data could originate in three different applications, interact with two separate billing systems and interface to many other applications that are used later in the process of patient care.
Emory’s solution had to meet several requirements, said Cantrell. It had to leverage an existing enterprise master patient index to enable patient registration from a single application. It had to standardize the patient data model and the patient registration process, as well as searches for patient information.
GPR also was intended to help users by using computer-driven requirements, process and business rules to help them through the registration process. And it was intended to improve patient experiences by eliminating their need to answer duplicative questions in different areas of the organization.
The application has helped by improving data quality, patient safety and patient satisfaction, among other benefits, said Cantrell.
“At Emory Healthcare, we have recognized the importance of frontline investment to the achievement of critical priorities and have set this as the foundation of many of our projects and changes,” Cantrell said. “The benefits take time to see, but are worth the investment. We believe this frontline investment is a part of the critical path to the survival of our organization and will be critical to the healthcare industry in general."
While GPR sounds simple in concept, it was difficult to execute, and involved significant effort from Emory Healthcare’s IT department, she said.
“When you implement a project like our Global Patient Registration, it is not always understood at first,” she said. “How we fundamentally do things in our patient access workflows has changed, and change is never easy. To have the validation from my peers and the appreciation of the enormity of the project we implemented is a wonderful feeling.”
CHIME’s Innovator of the Year Award recognizes healthcare CIOs who are using IT applications in creative and exciting new ways. The award is designed to provide peer recognition to a CIO who has demonstrated value to their organization through the creative application of technology in support of their organization's key and strategic business objectives.
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CHIME Honors New Jersey HIE Project and RelayHealth with Collaboration Award
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Collaboration Award Winners (from left to right) Judy Comitto, Linda Reed, Neal Ganguly and Craig Edwards.
Some 18 hospitals in Northern and Central New Jersey are setting aside competitive differences to exchange patient data, building a platform for better care coordination and enhanced efficiency in healthcare delivery.
The project, called Jersey Health Connect, involves the hospitals and RelayHealth, which is supplying the underlying technology to support the health information exchange initiative.
The close collaborative effort between providers and vendor was honored with the 2011 CHIME Collaboration Award at the CHIME11 Fall CIO Forum.
Started as The Northern and Central New Jersey Health Information Exchange Collaborative, Jersey Health Connect (JHC) is an ad-hoc collaboration of multiple hospital systems, provider organizations and long-term care facilities. JHC is leveraging existing, self-sustaining Health Information Exchange capabilities to serve as an example that holds great promise for New Jersey’s statewide HIE strategy.
The Collaborative incorporated as Jersey Health Connect, a not-for-profit organization in 2010 with the goals of building on connectivity in the region to accelerate members health information exchange activity; improve care coordination through real-time data exchange; build on an already financially stable model; and ensure ongoing compliance with national standards, and privacy and security considerations.
In 2007, Atlantic Health wanted a way to facilitate electronic collaboration between its hospitals and affiliated physicians without regard to whether or not a physician had implemented an electronic health record system. Working with RelayHealth allowed Atlantic Health to provide EMR functionality to physicians that were concerned about the complexities a full EMR would add to their practices.
“Each of Jersey Health Connect’s participating CIOs deserves kudos for the success of this initiative. The leadership exhibited by these professionals ensured that competitors could come together for the good of the healthcare of our communities,” said Linda Reed, RN, MBA, president of Jersey Health Connect and vice president and CIO at Atlantic Health. “Every CIO knows that the partners you choose for a high-profile project can make or break the project’s success. From the beginning, RelayHealth was committed to Jersey Health Connect’s success, and this commitment continues to this day.”
“Jersey Health Connect began as separate health systems that were using clinical integration to increase physician alignment and improve care coordination,” said Jim Bodenbender, president of RelayHealth. “Over time, these multiple enterprises health systems recognized the value of collaboration and formed a single enterprise to enhance the delivery of care in their communities. We appreciate the relationship we have with these leaders and applaud their efforts.”
CHIME members participating in the collaboration, in addition to Reed, include Lou Hermans, JFK Health System; Frank DiSanzo, Saint Peter’s University Hospital Health System; Judy Comitto, Trinitas Regional Medical Center; Ben Bordonaro, Hackensack University Medical Center; Glenn Mamary, Hunterdon Healthcare System; Michael McTigue, Saint Barnabas Medical Center; Neal Ganguly, CentraState Healthcare System; and Craig Edwards, Summit Medical Group.
The Collaboration Award recognizes the best collaborative effort as evidenced in a document co-authored by a CHIME Foundation firm and a CHIME member. The criteria demanded that the winning co-authored paper must have value for the healthcare IT/IS arena in terms of both the collaborative effort and the overall topic.
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CHIME Education Programs |
2012 CHCIO Exam Dates Released
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Three dates have been announced for the CHCIO Examination for 2012:
- February 22 in Las Vegas as part of the HIMSS conference
- April 17 in Chicago in conjunction with the Spring offering of CHIME’s Healthcare CIO Boot Camp
- October 16 in Indian Wells, Calif. as part of the Fall CIO Forum
Only CHIME members and Affiliates are eligible to sit for the CHCIO Exam. To learn more about the CHCIO Program, please visit www.cio-chime.org/CHCIO.
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CHIME Spotlight |
StateNet
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 At this year’s Fall Forum, CHIME unveiled a new online engagement platform meant to facilitate information sharing among state health IT stakeholders.
The new platform - http://ciostatenet.org - is part of a broader relaunch for CHIME’s CIO State Network (StateNet) to enhance communication among healthcare chief information officers and other stakeholders on important matters related to the HITECH Act, as well as on other key state health IT activity. The new web-based platform also is designed to enable cross-state communications and provide an environment of easy-to-use, actionable resources to address important health IT issues.
CHIME StateNet was established to ensure that healthcare CIOs were intimately involved with HITECH implementation inside their states. A 50-state (and the District of Columbia) network of health IT stakeholders sought to foster statewide coalitions charged with advancing and standardizing the adoption of health information technology and health information exchange.
To help facilitate these efforts, CHIME members serve as StateNet CIO Coordinators, who are conduits in every state, charged with gathering and communicating relevant health IT developments, while sharing best practices both within and across states to encourage information distribution among stakeholders.
As part of its work during this first iteration, CHIME StateNet published “Guiding Principles” for more robust health information exchange (HIE) and better utilized regional extension centers (RECs). Several states have also teamed with local Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) chapters to coordinator state advocacy days to inform public officials on the benefits of health IT.
Since that time, the national health IT landscape has broadened with current horizons focused on a host of issues, including:
- Proposed rules for meaningful use stage 2;
- Expansion and refinement of HIE operations;
- Rollout of REC service utilization for stage 1 meaningful use;
- Development of HIT and HIM workforce capacity; and
- Preparation for broader healthcare quality initiatives, introduced through healthcare reform and the Affordable Care Act.
To help CIO Coordinators navigate this fast-changing landscape, CHIME launched a new online engagement platform during its annual Fall CIO Forum.
The engagement platform for StateNet members will facilitate information sharing among state health IT stakeholders; enable cross-state communications where regional or national collaboration is needed; and provide an environment of easy-to-use, actionable resources to address important health IT issues.
To join CHIME StateNet, please visit http://ciostatenet.org.
Also see a blog posting written by Russ Branzell on the launch of the new StateNet platform: http://chimefallforum.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/new-statenet-platform-launch-at-chime11/
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