• Baldrige Names CHIME CEO Russ Branzell Cybersecurity Leadership Award Recipient

    ANN ARBOR, MI, March 5, 2018 – The Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award today named the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) President and CEO Russell Branzell recipient of the 2018 Baldrige Foundation Awards for Leadership Excellence in the Cybersecurity sector.

    Russ Branzell

    Russ Branzell, FCHIME, CHCIO, President & Chief Executive Officer, CHIME

    Cybersecurity is one of six sectors that the foundation highlights with its Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards. The other sectors are: business (manufacturing, service, small business); nonprofit; government; healthcare; and education. Each sector award recognizes one individual for outstanding leadership in support and promotion of the Baldrige Framework. The awards were authorized by the Foundation Board of Directors.

    “There are so many people doing such important work promoting the quality field and the Baldrige principles, and Russ Branzell has been a critical proponent of the development and promotion of Baldrige principles applied to cybersecurity,” said Foundation President and CEO Al Faber. “Russ has been an important partner to the Foundation and continues to advocate for widespread adoption of the Baldrige Cybersecurity Excellence Builder.”

    Cybersecurity is a critical concern for CHIME and its membership of more than 2,500 chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. Cybersecurity is a top priority for CHIME’s Public Policy Steering Committee and policy team in Washington, D.C.; and of the CHIME affiliate, the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Security (AEHIS). Both CHIME and AEHIS support members with education, career development, networking and advocacy resources and opportunities.

    “Last year’s WannaCry and Petya cyberattacks underscore how critical it is for all organizations to have a robust cybersecurity program,” Branzell said. “In healthcare we need to be especially vigilant because it is not only money at stake, but patients’ lives. The Baldrige Foundation provides excellent resources for organizations in any industry to assess and improve their cyber risk management efforts. It is an honor to contribute to this and the many other outstanding initiatives Baldrige offers.”

    Baldrige is a leadership and management framework with a systems-level, customer-driven organizational assessment and design approach that has proven to enhance the performance of organizations across every sector of the economy compared to their non-Baldrige peers. Baldrige generates an empirically documented return on investment of $820 in cost savings and performance enhancements for each $1 spent supporting the Baldrige Enterprise. To review the relevant data, click here: https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/how-baldrige-works/about-baldrige/baldrige-impacts

    About CHIME

    The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 2,500 members in 51 countries and over 150 healthcare IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.

    Contact
    Candace Stuart
    Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME
    734.665.0000
    [email protected]

    Posted 3.5.2018

  • Harmony Healthcare IT Presents Tips at HIMSS18 on how Legacy Data Management Planning Helps Deflect Healthcare Cyberattacks

    SOUTH BEND, IN – March 5, 2018 – As healthcare tops the list as the most cyberattacked industry in North America for 2017, vulnerabilities from aging systems is the number one concern for IT executives according to a recent survey by Grant Thornton and The Professional Services Council. Of the many initiatives CIO’s and IT executives are considering to shore up their cybersecurity defense, creating a legacy data management plan should be at the top of the list says Harmony Healthcare IT (HHIT), makers of HealthData Archiver®.

    HHIT will share guidance to help healthcare providers guard their legacy data during a presentation: “Healthcare Cybersecurity Strategy: Make a Big, yet Easy Defensive Move – Create a Legacy Data Management Plan” at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, March 6, 2018, at the Cybersecurity Command Center at the HIMSS18 event at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas. To download the white paper, visit: www.harmonyhit.com/resources/security

    “Archiving may not be the first thing on your health system’s cybersecurity task list, but it should be,” said Rick Adams, Vice President of IT and Chief Security Officer at Harmony Healthcare IT. “Think of it as closing and locking as many doors and windows to your organization’s valuable electronic health information. A health system’s best defense is to limit the number of systems it needs to protect.”

    Adams also notes that considering the cost benefits of consolidating legacy systems and the added security of having less systems at risk, it makes sense to archive as much legacy data as possible into a single, secure archive.

    The HIMSS18 Annual Conference and Exposition is March 5-9, 2018 at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas. The HHIT team will be at booth #1454 and also in the Cybersecurity Command Center at kiosk 8600-66.

    About Harmony Healthcare IT
    Since 2006, health IT analysts at Harmony Healthcare IT have extracted demographic, financial, clinical and administrative data for hundreds of healthcare provider organizations – both ambulatory and acute. Headquartered in South Bend, Indiana, the company’s mission is to preserve vital information that will improve lives. Harmony Healthcare IT employs experts in data extraction, migration, retention, integration and analytics to provide its clients with trusted solutions. Working with hundreds of applications, billions of records and petabytes of data; Harmony Healthcare IT with its product, HealthData Archiver®, provides clients with access to historical records. Simply. For more information about the company, visit: www.harmonyhit.com .

    # # # #

    Contact:
    Shannon Larkin
    Harmony Healthcare IT
    800-781-1044 x 109
    [email protected]

    Posted 3.4.2018

  • Infographic: How Your Hospital Can Curb Rework and Burnout, Enabling Staff to Spend More Time with Patients

    Includes Clinical and Financial Outcomes from Hospitals Using Nuance’s AI-Powered Computer-Assisted Physician Documentation Solutions to Reduce Rework

     

    Burlington, MA. and Las Vegas, NV. – March 5, 2018 – At HIMSS 2018, Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), (booth #1143) unveiled new study data in an infographic about the importance of reducing rework. The healthcare system is built on the premise of rework with clinical documentation specialists and coders going back to the care team for specifications and clarity on clinical documentation, causing physicians to relive their day and rework documentation done previously. Rework is a root cause of staff burnout in hospitals and healthcare systems. The infographic is available for download here.

    As physicians and care teams face mounting pressure and stress many are struggling to find enough time to spend with patients while completing their administrative duties, which often includes re-doing work and adding details needed to satisfy regulatory and administrative functions. The unrelenting cycle of pressure and stress lead to more rework and burnout which in turn causes staff to work longer hours and accumulate more fatigue and stress. According to the American Medical Association, burnout causes a 200 percent increase in medical errors. To help curb rework, several U.S. health systems have turned to Nuance’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Computer Assisted Physician Documentation (CAPD) solution or its’ Computer-Assisted Clinical Documentation Improvement (CACDI) solution for help. As shown in the Infographic, the computer assisted technology helped improve the first-time accuracy of documentation which significantly reduced rework, improved staff satisfaction and retention. Specifically, the impact includes:

    • 36 percent average reduction in retrospective CDI /coding queries
    • 20 percent increase in the number of cases a CDS can review
    • 36 and 24 percent improvement in capture of Extreme SOI and Extreme ROM, respectively
    • 54 percent improved reimbursement accuracy on queries impacted, or $5K on average for each

    With the significant amounts of data physicians and care teams must listen to and capture while tending to their other hospital-related responsibilities and dealing with the stress and pressure of their jobs, details slip through the cracks or may be entered incorrectly. The lasting impact of incorrect or incomplete documentation can be significant, potentially compromising patient care, causing an increase in claim denials and proper insurance reimbursements and eventually resulting in a hospital staff member reworking, or fixing the inaccuracies. Therefore, it’s no surprise that, according to a recent CHIME survey, 48 percent of CHIME CIOs are planning to deploy AI within the next five years to help address these issues.

    Nuance is helping customers leverage the real-time intelligence and decision support made possible with AI to dramatically improve both the quality and speed with which each patient’s clinical story is captured. Making sure every instance of the patient story is always right gives physicians the confidence they are accurately documenting all the details required to describe the level of complexity and care provided to each patient. At the same time, it helps combat clinician burnout by relieving the stress and significant amount of time needed to create a thorough patient story.

    To see Nuance’s AI-powered CAPD and CACDI in action, visit Nuance booth #1143 at HIMSS 2018, Las Vegas, Nevada, March 5-8, 2018.

    About Nuance Healthcare
    Nuance provides intelligent systems that support a more natural and insightful approach to clinical documentation, freeing clinicians to spend more time caring for patients. Nuance healthcare solutions capture, improve, and communicate more than 300 million patient stories each year helping more than 500,000 clinicians in 10,000 global healthcare organizations to drive meaningful clinical and financial outcomes. Nuance’s award-winning clinical speech recognition, medical transcription, CDI, coding, quality, and medical imaging solutions provide a more complete and accurate view of patient care.

    About Nuance Communications, Inc.
    Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users, and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

    Trademark reference: Nuance and the Nuance logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

    Contact Information
    Palmer Reuther
    Corporate Communications, Healthcare, Nuance
    978-697-9227
    [email protected]

    Posted 3.3.2018

  • Novarad Introduces Responsive New Website with Cost-Based Enterprise Imaging Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator

     

    Medical software company offers interactive tool for determining true cost of enterprise imaging solution, while providing rich additional content

     

    SALT LAKE CITY, UT – March 2, 2018 – Novarad, a Utah-based medical software company, has announced the launch of its new website located at www.novarad.net, including richer content and a convenient, hard cost-based enterprise imaging ROI calculator.

    Novarad’s Enterprise Imaging ROI Calculator uses an equation based on market observation and in-house research that takes into account hard costs such as number of images per month per department, specialty viewers, hospital beds, and more.

    “One of the unexpected challenges with transitioning to an Enterprise Imaging solution is that there isn’t an identified budget or funding available at the facility,” said Daniel Ruppar, Global Program Director of Digital Health with Frost and Sullivan. “Novarad’s ROI calculator will help decision makers identify operational savings that can offset costs associated with the upgrade.”

    The new website will help visitors find desired information both quickly and efficiently and will provide a more positive online experience for those interacting with Novarad’s content. In addition to the ROI Calculator, the company’s new website will contain a wealth of rich information including new whitepapers, case studies, videos, articles, and more.

    To learn more about Novarad, please visit our new website, www.novarad.net, or follow us on Twitter, @NovaradCorp.

    # # #

    Founded by a radiologist over 20 years ago, Novarad has demonstrated Best in KLAS expertise in the three phases of enterprise imaging—viewing, workflow, and storage—which allows it to customize meaningful enterprise imaging solutions to fit the unique needs of each healthcare professional. Providing both easily deployed modular products and fully customizable enterprise imaging solutions, the company has installed over 1000 systems globally with KLAS-confirmed, market-leading retention rates. The company is best known for product functionality and constant development; its products have a reputation for being easy to learn and use, yet feature-rich for even the most advanced users. Visit Novarad.net to learn more.

    Media Contact:
    Kristi Alvarado
    Media Relations Contact at Novarad
    801.642.1001
    [email protected]

    Posted 3.2.2018

  • Telmediq Adds New Call Center Console to Industry Leading Communications Platform

    Seattle, WA. – February 28, 2018 – Telmediq, the #1 KLAS rated vendor for secure communication platforms in healthcare, launches new call center console within its platform at HIMSS18.  The new console allows call center agents and operators within a healthcare system’s call center to handle inbound calls and access to critical information from clinical and IT systems in real-time using a single unified interface.

    Using the new functionality, call center agents can join virtual queues from any location to service inbound patient and clinician calls, and instantly contact clinicians using Telmediq’s secure texting platform and unified clinical directories.  Rapid access to patient data is also enabled using a seamless integration with leading EMR systems such as Epic, Cerner, and Meditech.

    “Hospitals continually struggle to get their legacy CTI-based call center technology properly integrated with their directory, scheduling solutions, patient records and texting solutions. This creates a lot of inefficient work arounds by call center staff and IT,” said Ben Moore, CEO and Founder of Telmediq. “The key to improving communication in hospitals is removing those silos and connecting all communication channels. That’s what we do.”

    Barry Runyon of Gartner Research, recently wrote, “Clinical communication and collaboration, interactive patient care, and alarms and notification systems have actively begun to assume nurse call responsibilities. Soon contact/call centers will begin to participate directly in this new care team collaboration IT ecosystem.”1

    Telmediq is the first company to include a full call center capability with a unified communications platform in healthcare using a cloud delivery model.  Historically, on premise call center software would need to be integrated with third-party paging or texting solutions, but Telmediq brings all of the mobile communications into a single platform.

    The new call center console also enables hospitals to easily record operators and produce detailed reporting to promote higher levels of call service. Analytics are built into the system to measure call types and message flow to better deploy staffing resources over time.

    “Our goal is to help hospitals move the call center towards a patient engagement center by reducing the number of administrative calls received. This will allow call center staff to focus on more proactive patient engagement activities,” said Moore.

    Telmediq plans to add a patient texting module to the platform later this year so call center operators will be able to service both phone calls and inbound secure text messages from patients and route them accordingly, within the healthcare system.

    “Every other industry has evolved towards multi-channel call center strategies except for healthcare,” said Moore.  “Patients should have better access options for real-time communication with their healthcare providers.  We’re working with our healthcare customers to make that happen.”

    1. Gartner, “Innovation Insight for Care Team Collaboration,” Barry Runyon, 21 February 2018.

     

    About Telmediq
    Telmediq is KLAS’ #1 vendor for secure communication platforms in 2018. Telmediq provides a unified clinical communication platform to large hospital systems and acute-care facilities that integrates with more than 20 clinical systems (EHR, scheduling, lab, nurse call). Telmediq provides an integration and consolidation roadmap to reduce software and support costs, improve workflows and provide a single source for analytics, auditing and reporting. Our clients reduce patient wait times, improve patient handover times and improve physicians’ work environment.

     

    Posted 3.1.2018

  • Inside CHIME: Mentorship Opportunity Proves Enlightening for Both Sides

    Inside CHIME - header

    3.1.18
    By Candace Stuart, Director, Communications & Public Relations

    Matt Turner knew that assuming the duties of associate CIO in 2017 on top of his position as an analytics officer at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston would come with significant challenges. But as a participant in CHIME’s mentorship program, he had a trusted colleague in Gary Light to help him navigate the new territory.

    Matt Turner

    Matt Turner, CHCIO-E, Chief Data Officer, Medical University of South Carolina

    “It is a cool thing that CHIME offers,” said Turner, now MUSC’s chief data officer. “You can’t find the opportunity as an emerging health IT leader to pick the brain of somebody who has been in that role in multiple operations anywhere else.”

    Light, vice president and CIO at Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center in Jasper, Ind., has had a decade-plus career as a CIO and a healthcare executive in various organizations around the U.S. A member of CHIME since 1992, he has been a champion for helping CHIME members develop their careers. In 2017, he mentored four different members.

    “There are a lot of commonalities but so far the people I have worked with have been fairly diverse in their roles,” Light said. Some mentees, like Turner, may aspire to be CIOs; others may already hold the title and see the benefit of having an experienced colleague to provide perspective. No matter the size or type of healthcare organization they serve, most have questions about how to interact with executive staff and other leaders.

    Gary Light

    Gary Light, MBA, CHCIO, VP & Chief Information Officer, Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center

    Light describes his monthly calls with mentees as conversations where they arrive at strategies through discussion. “There are no canned answers to anything,” he noted. For instance, Turner reached out to Light when he faced two fiscal projects: budget planning and capital planning. Light walked Turner through the processes and how he handled them.

    “Gary provided insight and guidance on how he negotiates with CFOs and makes that capital pitch to leaders,” Turner said.

    The mentor-mentee conversation may focus on a mutual challenge like cybersecurity and the fine balance between educating and alarming leaders about risks. Or it may circle around experiences with certain healthcare IT products. Light says it is a learning experience for him, too, as he hears the perspectives of IT leaders in other environments like behavioral health, an academic center or a large physician practice setting.

    “They have different priorities than we have at a community acute care setting,” he said. “I learn from the environment they are in and the processes they are going through.”

    Turner says the mentoring he receives from Light and others at MUSC has helped him advance his career without having to leave a city he and his family enjoy. For Light, mentoring is an opportunity to give back to CHIME and the industry, just as he felt the mentors he met during a CHIME Healthcare CIO Boot Camp had given to him.

    “Our organization is what the members make it,” Light said. “If I have an opportunity to provide some value to the organization and our members, then I absolutely want to do that. … Our industry will be the better for it if we share our experiences.”

    More information about CHIME’s mentorship program is available online here.

    More Inside CHIME

    Posted 3.1.2018

  • Inside CHIME: Funding Signals Welcome Support for Addressing Opioid Crisis

    Inside CHIME - header

    3.1.2018

    Ed Kopetsky, LCHIME, FCHIME, CIO, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

    Jim Turnbull, LCHIME, FCHIME, CIO, University of Utah Health

    The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 that passed earlier this year includes $6 billion to be distributed over two years to combat the opioid epidemic and other substance abuse issues. As the co-chairs of the CHIME Task Force, we applaud this decision by Congress. Opioid overdoses are now the nation’s No. 1 cause of death for people under 50, and the death rate remains high across most age groups.

    The CHIME Opioid Task Force was created to help bend the curve on what has become a national crisis. As top executives overseeing healthcare IT in organizations across the country and around the world, our members have the resources, expertise and leadership skills to drive change. We have a long history of networking and working together to address healthcare challenges, along with established partnerships with thought leaders in government, industry and other associations–partnerships we plan to leverage to maximize our efforts.

    In our inaugural meeting on Jan. 24-25 in Washington, D.C., task force members identified potential short-term and long-term goals that take advantage of strengths and core competencies. The list includes:

    • Surveying members to establish their current involvement and interest in addressing the opioid epidemic.
    • Using member networks to collect and share leading and emerging practices for dealing with the crisis.
    • Working with partners to encourage adoption of best practices, consistent reporting and cutting-edge analytics.
    • Monitoring opioid policy and regulation at the federal level and providing insights when relevant, while simultaneously supporting our members who are taking action at the local level.
    • Working with other stakeholders to destigmatize victims of the opioid crisis.

    We recognize that opioid addiction is an urgent problem, which is why we have already been reaching out to members to identify actionable solutions. One promising approach involves not patients directly but rather prescribers who dispense opioids for everything from surgeries to dental procedures to chronic pain. Sales of prescription opioids nearly quadrupled and overdose deaths nearly tripled in the U.S. between 1999 and 2015. According to an analysis by Massachusetts’ Department of Health, at least 2 of every 3 people who died of an opioid-related overdose had been given an opioid prescription.

    Some proactive providers have recognized that reducing the exposure of patients to these potentially addictive drugs at the onset is one way to prevent addiction. Our members have been sharing preliminary data for such interventions, and we hope to make those results available to members and the larger healthcare community at some point.

    Longer term, we see great value in standardizing data resources such as Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, which are statewide electronic databases of dispensed prescriptions for controlled substance prescriptions. At present, these databases vary widely state by state, not only by what data they gather but also by the agency responsible for housing the database. Efforts to create intrastate networks are underway in some regions, but variability remains a barrier. Whether the Opioid Task Force leads in efforts to harmonize the data or not, we commend and support these collaborations.

    Ultimately our goal is to save lives and improve healthcare in our communities. We welcome the support shown by our congressional leaders to combat the opioid epidemic. We also welcome hearing from others, who like us, have made a commitment to end this crisis. To contact us, please visit our website here.

    Editor’s note: This commentary originally was published online on Feb. 23 in Modern Healthcare.

    More Inside CHIME

    Posted 3.1.2018

  • Inside CHIME: Visit CHIME’s Booth in Lobby C at HIMSS18

    Inside CHIME - header

    3.1.18
    By Spenser Staebler, Specialist, Membership & Professional Development

    If you are attending HIMSS18 in Las Vegas next week, please be sure to visit the CHIME booth in Lobby C at the convention center. We have some valuable new resources and tools to show you, and opportunities for you to learn more about our offerings.

    And if you know a CIO who is not a member, bring them along! Both of you will receive a gift for saying hello.

    Here is the schedule:

    Tuesday, March 6

     

    10 a.m. – 11 a.m.: Discover TransformIT, CHIME’s new benchmarking tool

    11 a.m. – noon: Meet the CHIME Board and learn the pathway for becoming a board member

    11 a.m. – noon: Get ready for HealthCare’s Most Wired; staff will be on hand to answer questions

    12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.: AEHIS membership meet and greet

    1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.: Learn the steps to becoming a CHIME Certified Healthcare CIO (CHCIO)

    1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.: Upside Down Focus Group, a session for Foundation firm members on selling and marketing to CIOs

    2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.: Learn about the CHIME Foundation Certification Healthcare Executive (CFCHE) program

    3 p.m. – 4 p.m.: A meet and greet with the faculty of the CMIO Leadership Academy

    4 p.m. – 5 p.m.: Discover ways to get engaged in public policy

    4 p.m. – 5 p.m.: A meet and greet for international members

    Wednesday, March 7

     

    9:30 a.m. – 11 a.m.: Discover TransformIT, CHIME’s new benchmarking tool

    9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.: AEHIT membership meet and greet

    9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.: Get ready for HealthCare’s Most Wired; staff will be on hand to answer questions

    10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.: Learn about the CHIME Foundation Certification Healthcare Executive (CFCHE) program

    11 a.m. – 2 p.m.: Discover CHIME, a meet and greet with the CHIME team

    1 p.m. – 2 p.m.: Learn about the new CHIME Innovation Center

    2 p.m. – 3 p.m.: AEHIA membership meet and greet

    2 p.m. – 3 p.m.: A meet and greet with CHIME Technologies Cooperative Members Services

    4 p.m. – 5 p.m.: A meet and greet for new CHIME members

    Thursday, March 8

     

    9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.:  Learn the steps to becoming a CHIME Certified Healthcare CIO (CHCIO)

    10:30 a.m. – noon: Discover CHIME, a meet and greet with the CHIME team

    More Inside CHIME

    Posted 3.1.2018
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