Ribbon cutting ceremony at DCSNO St. Cecilia center, April 30 2010
Daughters of Charity Services of New Orleans (DCSNO) recently launched a new community health center in St. Cecilia, marking a successful collaboration of administrative, architectural and IT management efforts. The goal: to bring quality health care to under-served, post-Hurricane Katrina communities. DCSNO, with IT Management provided by ThotBox Solutions Group, is providing two new facilities and upgrading existing ones that will support approximately 45,000 patients, tripling their current capabilities. In this article, we examine how technology had to be carefully planned and then implemented to increase the efficiency of launching and running a large scale community healthcare center project.
(l-r) Thotbox CEO Remyi Cole and DCSNO CEO Michael Griffin
DCSNO, led by President/CEO Michael Griffin, an experienced professional in hospital administration, discusses the considerations for planning and implementation of technology. Mr. Griffin holds both entrepreneurial and public health management experience under his belt and takes an honest, direct, and practical approach to the capabilities and challenges of technology in the community healthcare center setting.
Consideration: In-House IT Staff vs. Outsourcing
At the outset of any project, the decision on whether or not to hire a consultant must be weighed upon the capabilities of current staff or the cost effectiveness of hiring dedicated staff.
Michael Griffin: “We came to that decision by knowing our own administrative limitations and saying look how much more can we squeeze into this already busy day and team? How much can we squeeze into that and when do we need to outsource it? Especially when we need a specialist that can keep up with all these things on the day-to-day. We wear a lot of hats and do a lot of different things, but we’re not specialists on the technical side of technology and we need to have that type of expertise especially when we’re building something new like we are now.”
Consideration: Growth
The challenge with implementing technology for health centers is the coordination of the mission-critical applications. The applications must be “data-aware,” of each to insure work-flow supports the staffs operations. One must consider EMR, Pharma IT, Optical IT and Inventory Management along with a host of other sub-applications.
Michael Griffin: “We address a lot of considerations: adaptability of systems, flexibility of the companies we’re working with and their products and compatibility with others. All of those are major considerations. For instance with EMR (electronic medical records), we needed to adapt that to do population based management tools, care management, modules that we been able to build and integration with dental, pharmacy and other systems is what we’re going towards. Implementing the HL7 platform and having the ability to get info real time at stroke of a key are important.
Consideration: Integration
Integrating different software packages as well as managing multiple vendors proves to be a serious challenge for health care centers.
Michael Griffin: “Integration of systems, which (ThotBox) is working on, integrating pharma, dental, with EMR, practice management system, integrating that technology where other specialists and hospitals could be externally integrated. Technology makes that more possible. When I started out in this field 15-16 years old, we tracked things on paper then you went back to audit files but now you can enter things into data sets. Now, at a stroke of a key you can pull a lot of info, see outcomes and instead of having a small sample, you will have a more representative sample size. All of that is doable through technology which I think is better for the long term in treating patients and for care.”
Consideration: Training
The reality of integrating new systems means that staff will need to be trained on how to use them. The downtime and learning curve must be factored in.
Michael Griffin: “There’s always the gap of the human condition in really learning new technology. Every 6 months there’s something new and really just keeping up. Training all levels of your staff to up to speed and up to date on the latest and greatest technology and how to best use it.”
Ultimate goal: Improve Client Care
The true test of technology is whether it can be utilized to improve results which in healthcare also means improving the care of patients. Planning, implementation and maintenance of IT systems are crucial to this goal.
Michael Griffin: “Technology can be great if you’re maximizing and using it to its fullest capacity, if you’re not it can be a hindrance. Making sure there’s not a barrier to delivering the best care to our patients is always a challenge because you have to make sure everyone is effectively changing and keeping up with any changes that may happen.”
New Orleans Specific Challenge & Goal:
In 2005, catastrophic Hurricane Katrina left New Orleans nearly destroyed and facing a state of emergency. The hurricane, coupled with the country’s economic recession and nationwide health care crisis put New Orleans in an uphill battle. With the closing of Charity Hospital due to financial issues, the emergency rooms of other hospitals have become congested with non- life threatening visits.
Michael Griffin: “Bottom line New Orleans has been a hospital driven focus, many people use the ER as primary care. These new sites and centers are really focused on primary care and prevention in your neighborhood, in your community, the highest level of care and the latest and greatest technology that we can bring and doctors and providers to that population in a neighborhood and community easily accessible. Not waiting in the ER 4-5 hours, mainly sometimes 12 hours, having a scheduled appointment, having open access where a patient can get in that morning when they need to because lets face it 80% of what can be done in an emergency room can be done in a doctors office in a primary care setting, so having all of the tools in those locations to do that and provide the highest level of coordination of services and care is what these centers will accomplish. We will have behavioral health, dental, optometry and of course all the primary care specialties: pediatrics, internal medicine, OB, family medicine, all in a one-stop-shop. You can take care of all your needs at one time. The whole family could come and get most of their services taken care of.”
On Healthcare Reform:
Michael Griffin: “The whole focus of this has been on a more appropriate care, that’s your efficiency in the system and getting people into medical health and that is huge. It’s a major impact. I say that coupled with the motto that we (DCSNO) have will change the lifestyle and health status of communities. There are people because of having insurance getting into a primary preventative care instead of waiting will better their health status over a longer time.”
About DCSNO:
DCSNO is a key partner in many community partnerships that are working to improve the health of the residents of the greater New Orleans area. A central purpose of DCSNO’s mission is to improve access for persons of low income or without health insurance to primary care and preventive health services.
www.dcsno.org
very good.
thanks.