In this special Speaker Series, Becker's Healthcare caught up with Tom Barnett, CIO of the University of Rochester (NY) Medical Center.
Mr. Barnett will speak on a keynote panel during the Becker's Hospital Review 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference titled "How Will Amazon, Google and Apple Impact Healthcare - The Most Significant Changes in Health IT," at 3:40 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.
Question: How does your organization gain physician buy-in when it is implementing a new technology or solution?
Tom Barnett: It is simply this, any new technology at the end of day is a tool, and as such, it’s only a piece of the equation — no matter how great it is. For physicians to support an initiative they have to buy into it from the very start and understand it from a workflow perspective. They need to have a clear ‘what’s in it for them’ case. How will it impact their workflow — better or worse? More clicks or less? How will their workflow look or perform after the project is over. Before and after metrics are great to have here.
That’s where great governance comes in. Getting a good representative cross-section of physician leaders helps evaluate the impact of an initiative, promotes physicians having a voice in that initiative and creates promoters of the project as these physicians go back and speak with their colleagues. Also, consistency among the physicians in governance helps connect the dots of all of the various initiatives that are going on across the heath system and how they might impact one another. The goal for any initiative, hopefully, is to improve or optimize the physician workflow or at least minimally impact it if it is driven by elsewhere in the organization. We need their assistance in determining how we can partner to make that happen.
Q: What's the biggest misconception about health IT?
TB: The biggest misconception overall in the industry is that IT is sometimes thought of as a utility that provides a commoditized service to the health system. Far from it! As I have often said, health IT can be explained in nine words: There is no healthcare event without a technology response. Technology in healthcare delivery is like heat is in hot water — it’s everywhere. To be prepared for the right technology response to a given event, IT has to understand the underlying business processes and how it flows [or, in other words,] where the hand-off points are. That makes health IT a trusted and very valuable business partner.
Q: How has your organization improved the revenue cycle process in the past year?
TB: We have recently implemented Epic’s revenue cycle suite very successfully. This included registration, scheduling, professional and technical billing applications, along with patient movement capabilities. Getting the increased analytics and reports from the new system has led to tremendous insights into not only where work is but how it gets done as it moves through the revenue cycle, which is now spawning new, targeted optimization opportunities. This also provides a tremendous platform for IT, business operations and clinicians to collaborate even more deeply than before. It is a fantastic step forward. Always focus on the data and let the data lead the optimization.