Tips from a small hospital CIO for success with existing suppliers
Artesia General Hospital is a 25-bed acute care facility in rural southeastern New Mexico. It has 16 clinics in the region, a main campus in Artesia and remote facilities in Carlsbad. Services cover a wide range of specialties, including general practice, endocrinology, orthopedics, cardiology, urology, traditional inpatients and emergency care.
The small hospital found it crucial to keep its IT systems on-premises rather than moving to the cloud because it is in an area with frequent internet connection issues. The core EHR and revenue cycle applications come from TruBridge, formerly CPSI.
The company recently completed a major expansion of its own data center to ensure long-term high-quality patient care. It is critical to the physician-led management team that Artesia General is equipped to meet community and patient needs for years to come.
Eric Jimenez is CIO at Artesia General Hospital. We caught up with him to discuss, based on all these experiences, tips for IT success when working with a legacy vendor, the value of optimizing current systems through rip and replace, and facilitating social determinants of health data collection in small hospitals.
Q. What are some tips for healthcare IT success when working with a legacy vendor?
A. In our experience with a legacy vendor, we have been able to meet the needs of our community while remaining adaptable to new technology and system improvements. We continue to respond flexibly to emerging technologies and new end-user requirements, in collaboration with – and not against – our existing suppliers.
For example, we communicate with our healthcare providers to ensure they are never bogged down in the EHR and unable to meet patient needs in a timely manner. My top priority is to bring the right technology investments to the right areas at the optimal time.
One of my tips for any IT team would be to facilitate relationships between departments within your institution when it comes to legacy systems. The most productive, efficient improvements or upgrades are achieved when IT professionals understand end-user pain points and solve these challenges in collaboration with existing system vendors.
In addition, it is important to know that collaboration with your EHR partner is an enterprise-wide effort. The right partner should not be chosen by IT alone. Therefore, stakeholder input throughout the facility is important. I also advise my colleagues not to rush into this decision and to take the time to evaluate which technology will work best for your facility.
Q. What is the value of optimizing current systems via rip-and-replace?
A. There are several advantages to optimization over rip and replace. Some of the main positives I’ve seen are reduced costs, time savings, and improved workflows.
When we started this journey, our facility encountered meaningful use challenges and needed to be migrated to one EHR system that met our needs. As a small acute care health system, we needed a provider who understood us. We now have the right tools to deliver high-quality care at the right cost and complexity for our institution.
In addition, adjustments and regular improvements to the technology have kept our systems up to date and prevented the need for a new integration. Optimization saves physicians time so they can continue using systems they already know while we adjust and resolve obstacles. We strive to keep our doctors as efficient and effective as possible. That is why we prefer to improve our current technology over the tedious and costly implementation of new systems.
Through this process we have learned that the patient journey is at the heart of any successful implementation. Regular dialogue between IT teams, executive leadership, clinical teams and vendors is essential for successful technology implementation and adaptation and ongoing relationships. You and your team must understand every step in this process and work together to alleviate unnecessary burdens on patients and staff.
As we look to the future, we continue to look for opportunities for growth. We have goals to improve the patient and employee experience and know that our technology has room for AI and robotic process automation to ease the burden. However, with every new technology we take a conscious approach to integration. We are confident that we can take current systems to the next level without the need to overhaul the workflows our clinical teams are used to.
Q: How do you facilitate the social determinants of health data collection in your small hospital?
A. Our facility values SDOH as an important window into the overall well-being of our community. As a national organization, there are unique challenges and considerations that we must be aware of in our patient population. Patient privacy is even more important when caregivers and patients are also neighbors and friends.
We had to comply with new CMS requirements for SDOH data capture, ensure patient privacy, and minimize the impact on nursing staff. Here are some best practices we implemented to achieve all three goals.
First, tap case managers to capture SDOH data. Nurses already had to complete a large amount of paperwork upon admission, so additional documentation was not ideal. Case managers were required to consult with each patient before discharge. Case managers now collect data at the bedside, increasing compliance and creating a comprehensive understanding of the social needs of our community.
Second, respect the patient’s privacy. Case managers take an educational approach to the process. Patients and their families are willing to share sensitive information when they realize that SDOH data helps us provide better overall care.
And third, evaluate your SDOH data. We collected and analyzed data early in the process. Data showed that there are transportation gaps in our community. In response, we launched an Artesia General shuttle service to transport patients to and from their appointments. With accurate SDOH data, we are better equipped to meet the needs of our patients and community.
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