Recently at a dinner meeting off Canal Blvd in New Orleans, I was dining with a prominent Healthcare consultant and the CEO of a Healthcare System. We were discussing what healthcare operations are facing to keep pace with the required levels of integration needed to exchange information between provider care systems. For instance the technology and people needed to exchange information between clinics and hospitals, primary care to specialist. Today, a patient may visit a hospital across town, based on the referral of their general practice physician. The patient checks-in, receive treatment and is discharged without their general physician not having any notification of the patients procedure which took place. Out of this dynamic is the need for healthcare information exchange! The technology leadership that manages not only their internal systems but has the capacity and framework to connect into their referral network. Focusing the evolving role of the Chief Information Officer, which as the title depicts is a “C” level position, which then implies strategy. But what it also assumes is the number one lacking element for many health centers…Ownership. Ownership of the “hub and spoke” model which aligns the EMR system as the hub and auxiliary applications, outside providers as the spoke to their operation.
New policies out of Washington D.C., best practices and industry standards are a highlight to what we will be discussing at this years National Association of Community Health Center, Financial Operations Management and Information Technology conference November 16 – 18, 2010 in Las Vegas (PLANET HOLLYWOOD HOTEL).
Remyi Cole speaking @ this years NACHC in Las Vegas, NV
