Siemens Integration Consultants Needed

Posted by stoltenbergconsulting on May 7, 2013
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Siemens Integration Consultants Needed

We’d like to take this time to express that we’re looking for Siemens Integration Consultants!

The consultant is responsible for managing the Health Information Exchange project details related to the successful delivery of the client’s health information exchange (HIE). The consultant supports the Implementation team in managing project details related to HIE Initial Go Lives, EHR Integrations, Continuity of Care Document Exchange, Data Feed Analysis and other HIE related projects.

For more information, please contact Alexis Lowry: alowry@stoltenberg.com or (317) 804-2132.

A first-time attendee recaps the HIMSS 2013 Conference Exhibition

Posted by stoltenbergconsulting on March 11, 2013
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The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center held 1.1 million square feet of HIMSS13 excitement.

From March 3-7, the HIMSS 2013 Conference and Exhibition, the largest healthcare IT gathering with as many as 34,000 attendees, was held in New Orleans, LA.  It was my first time attending HIMSS, and I enjoyed every moment of it. Upon walking into the convention hall, I was surprised of the size and complexity of the booths before my eyes, and I couldn’t even see every booth. The isles stretched beyond my view, with booths set up for live demos, in-booth speeches, ER/ICU rooms, booths with a complete bar set up within it, and even booths spanning so large it was like walking in a house with multiple levels. Our own booth was set up with a Geodesic dome which was completely unique compared to the other booths. Trying to view all of the booths in the time frame allowable for the first day was not even a remote possibility. The range of possibilities and vendors that can encompass the words “healthcare IT” was astounding for a first time attendee to experience. I could not believe that this many people were invested in healthcare IT. Just the sheer number of EHR vendors was astounding, who were there to help healthcare providers meet government standards.

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Stoltenberg’s booth theme Building a Better HIT Community featured a Geodesic dome and 12-foot fabric tree.

While surveying some participants and exhibitors, one issue stood clear as a major discussion at HIMSS 2013 and as a major discussion for the upcoming year, Meaningful Use. There is such a high demand for healthcare IT personnel, it is important to get the word out that clients need assistance with meeting government requirements. Every day, several educational sessions were offered for the major issues being talked about today, including Meaningful Use, Health Information Exchange, and ICD-10. I was able to attend a few of these educational sessions.

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The floor was busy all week with attendees visiting exhibitor presentations, educational sessions, and live demos.

I was able to share my incite to attendees on what it is to be a Junior Consultant and the opportunities that I am gaining versus what I would have a few years ago when news grads were not given the opportunity to become consultants. The responses I received about the program were all very positive, with most people surprised that there is such a program available. I was also able to explain the work I have done on the Stoltenberg Help Desk and how beneficial it is for our clients.

HIMSS was a great experience to network and meet people, expand educationally, and to see what is occurring in the industry. As a new grad with limited healthcare industry knowledge, it was amazing to hear about new innovations that many major vendors are creating. It would have been great to be able to see every booth, but in the three days, it is not realistically possible.  Just remember, if you are a first time attendee, it doesn’t matter what type of shoes you wear! In the future I feel as though the conference may need to be extended in order to allow participants the ability to experience more of the booths, especially if the convention is going to keep growing as the years go by. Overall as a first time attendee, HIMSS was an overwhelmingly great experience on many levels.

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Stoltenberg team members conducted an industry survey from the show floor to gauge hot topics for 2013.

Thank you for your time!

-Sheryl Voloskie, Stoltenberg Consulting Junior Healthcare Systems Consultant 

Overcoming IT challenges for community and rural hospitals

Posted by stoltenbergconsulting on February 25, 2013
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With Meaningful Use (MU) in full swing, healthcare organizations are fully involved in planning and completing their tasks to keep them moving down their MU roadmap.  As of January 30, 2013, a FierceEMR article reports that incentive payments top $10.6 billion dollars. With over 355,000 hospitals and eligible professionals with active CMS registrations, the community and rural based hospital is one segment of the healthcare industry that is severely underrepresented.

The backbone of our healthcare system is the smaller community and rural hospitals located in communities across our nation.  The American Hospital Association totals the number of community hospitals at 4,973 with a total of 797,403 staff beds.  These hospitals account for almost 35 million admissions. With that kind of impact on our healthcare system, the loss of any community hospital would have dire consequences on the country as a whole.  If, however, these hospitals are not able to meet the MU deadlines, the Medicare and Medicaid penalties will cause them to close their doors. 

In a Stoltenberg Consulting issue brief, Stoltenberg sat down with Char Wray, VP Clinical Operations and Information Systems/Chief Clinical and Information Officer for EMH Healthcare in Elyria, Ohio to get a CIO’S perspective on this issue.  During that conversation, Char examined the issues facing community hospitals. One of the greatest issues is how MU payments are structured. “The way MU payments are structured, a hospital needs to make an investment upfront before it receives any reimbursement.” It is because of this upfront investment that many community hospitals have not been able to embark on their MU journey and start moving toward attestation. Another large obstacle is that community hospitals typically do not have large IT staff in place to handle such a project. One of the often missed obstacles that can bring a community hospital to its knees actually occurs after they successfully implement their new EMR to start their MU attestation- the issue of providing their physician and end users the 24x7x365 support they need to utilize their new EMR so the organization can achieve their required numerics for submitting to CMS.  Due to the small IT staff, these issues becomes a costly scenario preventing their ability to meet MU unless the organization can partner with out-of-the solutions that meets their needs but fit within their budgetary constraints.

Providing insight on where smaller hospitals are finding help, Fred Bazzoli, Senior Director of Communications for the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) explained, “CHIME sees the need to reach out to rural and community hospitals in a really pointed way. These smaller hospitals have to put aside competitive differences and stay in contact with each other to facilitate information transfer.” Bazzoli also feels it is important for smaller hospitals to seek out experts in the industry who have experience implementing the required systems. Stoltenberg shares that view and that passion. Providing that out-of-the box solution is essential to ensuring the future of our community and rural hospitals. This passion will be a large focus of ours at the upcoming HIMSS13 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Ensuring the success of our community hospitals directly impacts our individual health and we must do everything as an industry to guarantee their future.

Thank you for your time, and to our followers who will be attending HIMSS13 next week in New Orleans, stop by booth #4227. Check out the HITStoltenblog throughout next week for live blogging about conference hot topics and speakers. 

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To see the referenced article, go here. 

-Shane

HIT Policy Leader Places Focus on Client Needs over Vendor Dollars

Posted by stoltenbergconsulting on February 18, 2013
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ImageIn the Feb. 7 Healthcare IT News article, Diana Manos elaborates on comments made by Farzad Mostashari, MD, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.  His comments came at a meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee.  In these comments, Mostashari eluded to the unfair practices of some EHR vendors.  He also threatened increased governmental regulations to control those practices if they continue.

I do agree there are vendors and consulting firms in our sector that see a dollar as more important than “doing what is best for the client.”  That has plagued HIT for as long as there has been HIT.  Since ARRA and HITECH, this issue has grown.  Any sector that sees the business growth HIT has had over the last couple of years, draws the attention of people that see dollars instead of opportunity to make a difference and impact our healthcare system overall.  This is not new but might be more prolific than in the past.  Mostashari focused on vendors that use unfair “data lock-ins,” contract language that has a chilling effect on clients changing vendors and false claims of interrupted reporting abilities as examples of these unethical but legal practices. In response, he said regulations might be what is required to fix this issue.

My question is why would the regulatory process be required?  As consumers of vendor and consulting firm services, the power rest with the client.  If a vendor or consulting firm is clearly looking only for the almighty dollar and does not have a genuine priority of doing what is best for the client, why would its services be purchased?  As consumers, we all have the ability to set the standards we expect by what we choose to purchase and what we choose not to purchase.  Since there are vendors and consulting firms that clearly have the best intention for their clients, there are other options instead of purchasing services from one that is only driven by the profit.  More regulations are not needed. These vendors and firms can only take advantage of someone when the client signs the contract agreeing to those terms.

In today’s market where so many mergers are occurring, where vendors and consulting firms are becoming behemoths in the HIT market, these practices of putting profits in front of customers will only increase. Using vendors and consulting firms that have resisted this trend to merge so they can continue to focus on each individual client’s needs becomes critical to stopping the growth of unfair practices that put the dollar above the needs of the client. Use your pen to send a message to create the standards you want to see become the norm. Every signature on a contract sends a message to our industry.

-Shane

Community Hospitals Moving Toward Stage 2 Meaningful Use

Posted by stoltenbergconsulting on February 8, 2013
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Community Hospitals Moving Toward Stage 2 Meaningful Use

Within the Feb. 7 EHR Intelligence CIO Series feature “Moving from Stage 1 to Stage 2 Meaningful Use” author Kyle Murphy interviews EMH Vice President of Clinical Operations and Information Systems/Chief Clinical and Information Officer Charlotte Wray, addressing the goals set for the community hospital system’s movement toward Stage 2 MU. Check out this piece tailored toward rural and community hospitals making note of the first-hand experience behind it.

Find the article here. 

Find out more about EMH here. 

Getting through a go-live

Posted by stoltenbergconsulting on December 7, 2012
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Have you survived a HIT go-live?  Just like “this one time, at band camp,” several of us have “this one time, at a go-live” stories to share.

Entire system go-lives, upgrades, even small optimizations can be considered a go-live. This is the time when you find out if all the testing really helped and if the end users truly absorbed the training.

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Though go-lives can be a true test of stamina, here are some tips to best tackle the big event:

1)      Has anyone else gone through a similar go-live?  Schedule calls with other vendor clients to go over lessons learned from their go-live.

2)      Know your schedule long in advance to prepare for the longer workdays.  Your family will be without you.

3)      Get plenty of sleep!  It can be difficult to change your sleep patterns, but you need to be alert.

4)      Don’t eat the junk food in the command center.  If food is being provided, have everyone ask for healthy alternatives to cookies and doughnuts.

5)      Document everything.  Make sure you keep good notes on any build done for the go-live.  You or a co-worker may have to undo something if it causes a problem.

6)      Be invisible when not needed and working on tickets.  The command center can get crowded and out of control at times. You want the end users who stop by to see that everything is in control, so they’ll feel comfortable.  They’ve been given a new system or a change to the system to get accustomed to and take care of patients at the same time.  Knowing their support is in control will help them more than you know.

7)      If a quick fix to an issue isn’t available, try to come up with a workaround until a permanent fix can be completed.  End users on all shifts will need to be kept up to date with workarounds and any fixes.

8)      If you’re very lucky and get caught up, ask if anyone can use your help.  You would appreciate the help, right?

9)      Be sure to thank all of your teammates!  Everyone who has supported you through the go-live would be considered your parachute packers.

10)   Once the go-live is complete and everything is working perfectly, offer your lessons learned to other vendor clients to go full circle.

Please share your best go-live stories.  What could have been done differently?  What are your suggestions for your next go-live.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend.

-Beth