Brian Blaufeux, MD, northwest region chief medical information officer at Lake Success, N.Y.-based Northwell Health, discusses the importance of improving the flow of the organization's clinical information and how secure messaging technology can help physicians.
Responses are lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: How has your role as CMIO evolved over the past 2-3 years? How have your responsibilities changed since you took on the role?
Dr. Brian Blaufeux: For me, the biggest change was being promoted from a single-hospital CMIO for Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y., to a regional position for one of the nation's largest healthcare systems, Northwell Health. Our system has 23 hospitals, more than 6,500 hospital and long-term care beds and more than 18,500 affiliated physicians.
As for how my responsibilities have changed, improving the flow of clinical information into, within and from our organization has always been important, but it's now come to the forefront. I'm much more involved with system-wide discussions about communication and other software solutions. In addition, I'm starting to synchronize EMR and clinician workflows across the region's hospitals — which now also includes Phelps Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.— while continuing to manage day-to-day optimization of EMR functionality, display, documentation and ordering.
Q: What do you consider your No. 1 priority as CMIO? How do you ensure you're successful?
BB: This job really is all about helping clinicians do their jobs by leveraging information technology while maintaining regulatory requirements. Primarily, that means the EMR, but also includes communication and collaboration software.
While success is difficult to measure, provider EMR satisfaction provides one important indicator. The hospitals in the northwest region report the highest levels of satisfaction within the system.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you're facing as CMIO? What keeps you up at night?
BB: While recent government regulations will eventually ease the burden on clinicians, that downstream effect will take time. So, clinician satisfaction with healthcare technology still poses a challenge, and true interoperability is also slow in coming. I'm concerned about the negative effects on doctors' and nurses' workflows because they are still unable to access all the pertinent patient information when needed.
Q: Which apps and technologies do you find most helpful, and which do you think will be passing fads?
BB: Secure messaging — both human-to-human and automated sends of pertinent clinical information — is very helpful to clinicians' workflows if used selectively. [Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources] is here to stay. Apps have become standard for consumers in many other industries, and healthcare is poised to catch up in 2019 as we comply with regulations requiring patient access to their healthcare data via apps.
[Natural language processing] has not yet lived up to its promise, but predictive analytics using machine learning will steadily drive an increasing percentage of actions within healthcare organizations.
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