Congressional Staff Visit Washington Hospital to see IT in Action

Staff members supporting key congressional committees got a first-hand look Monday at healthcare information technology during a site visit to The George Washington University Hospital.


Five staff members were on-site for nearly two hours at the facility, which is the closest hospital to the White House. The staff came from the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, the Senate Budget Committee, the Senate Aging Committee, the House Small Business Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.

Staff were briefed in an orientation meeting and then met with physicians and nurses before seeing how information technology aided the care delivery process, including observing the facility’s emergency department in action.

“From the tour, I think they appreciated seeing the emergency department in full motion and with a pretty full patient load last evening,” said CHIME Member Gretchen Tegethoff, CIO and director of information technology for The George Washington University Hospital.

The event was jointly held by The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

“The purpose of the visit was really to show how IT is used and how it can improve patient care,” said Sharon Canner, CHIME’s director of advocacy. “It is important for representatives in Congress to understand that healthcare IT is a complex process that affects not just computer systems and staff, but also patients.”

Congressional staff found the trip valuable and appeared to be gaining insights that will help them when considering HIT policy for the country, said Tegethoff, who also is vice chair of CHIME’s Advocacy Leadership Team.

“They seemed to be fully engaged and asked very good questions. They focused on how the systems were integrated, the auditing functions that we perform to determine who has accessed and updated the records, and the decision support functions,” she said. “I believe it was successful in that we touched on some areas that may have been eye-openers for several in the audience.”

The hospital, an academic medical center, has had an electronic medical record in place since 2006, but the application is not a total solution for the facility, which must manage patient observations and notes from medical students and residents, and requires that supervising physicians oversee their work and sign off on their clinical decisions.

Staff members “learned that even though an EMR may be implemented, it may not satisfy all needs, especially for specialized areas,” Tegethoff said. “Sometimes niche systems are necessary, and we have several in our environment. We showed them our physician documentation and communication system, which overlays our existing EMR.”

Integration issues are complex and costly problems for academic medical centers, and congressional staff members learned how funding affects hospitals’ capabilities to both support and customize information systems after they’re installed.

“We discussed how both human and budgetary resources are necessary to make this all work and how in some cases, due to limited resources we haven’t yet achieved the level of integration we hope to achieve,” Tegethoff said.

CHIME’s Canner said it was significant to have representation at the event from the influential Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for Medicare.

“The explanation of systems was helpful in understanding how IT protects privacy, helps to standardize care to prevent bad outcomes, and addresses a host of other patient safety issues,” she said.



For further information, contact:
Katie Weitkamp
Communications Coordinator, CHIME
(734) 665-0000
kweitkamp@cio-chime.org


About CHIME
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) was formed with the dual objectives of serving the professional development needs of healthcare CIOs and advocating the more effective use of information management within healthcare. CHIME's events and activities were designed to reflect that purpose, including CIO-oriented surveys, education programs, and networking activities. With membership of over 1,300 CIOs, CHIME has established itself as the premier organization serving the needs of healthcare CIOs. CHIME's educational initiatives are supported by the CHIME Foundation, a group of 55 providers of healthcare IS products and services. To learn more about CHIME and the CHIME Foundation, see www.cio-chime.org.

UPDATED: 11/19/2008 8:54:56 AM