Why Apply

Applying for Stories of Success was of interest to me because I felt we had a story worth sharing.  We are using HIT to affect change.  We have demonstrated improved quality, safety, effectiveness and efficiency.

Katherine Konitzer, MMI
Analytics Manager
Marshfield Clinic
Marshfield, WI

“Innovations in healthcare information technology are enabling safer, higher quality care. The HIMSS/ASQ Stories of Success program is a superb vehicle for sharing our wins and allowing others to quickly adopt them.”

Eric Hartz, MD
CMIO
Eastern Maine Medical Center
Bangor, ME

I really believe that the future of HIT is going to come from the incorporation of process redesign.  We need to analyze our processes and continuously try to find ways for HIT to streamline these processes and improve the outcome care.  We used these principles in developing our Screening Colonoscopy process and our Surveillance Colonoscopy process.  I wanted to share this in the Stories of Success project.

Lawrence Kosinski, MD, MBA
CEO
Elgin Gastroenterology
South Barrington, IL

“Graybill is truly excited about sharing our automation successes and applaud HIMSS for providing us with a venue like the Stories of Success! program.”  

Leslie Chapman
Director of Finance
Graybill Medical Group, Inc.
Escondido, CA

Brigham and Women's Hospital is a pioneer in implementing systems to eliminate medication errors. It is well documented that medication errors can occur at any point in the medication process causing significant clinical and financial consequences. We submitted our case study to HIMSS to share two decades of experience and learnings on the use of health care technology. The study covered Computerized Physican Order Entry (CPOE), Medication Reconciliation, Pharmacy Order Verification and Drug Dispensing Process, Electronic Medication Administration Record (eMAR), Smart Pumps and Adverse Drug Event Monitor. Each of these systems contributes to a decrease in medication errors and an improvement in patient safety and collectively supports a closed loop medication process.

Sue Schade
Chief Information Officer
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, MA

We submitted this success story because we felt the environment that ePrescribing was deployed into was similar to many across the nation. Our experiences highlight the nature of the challenges facing a complex, larger scale deployment. As part of GRIPA’s clinical integration effort in the community, we hope to gain some recognition for our expertise and success in shepherding change among providers to effectively use emerging IT solutions. The success story offered us this opportunity.

Michael Van Ornum RPh, RN
Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist
GRIPA
Rochester, NY

A showcase for a significant strength of my skills, position and department, which is the quick responsiveness that on-site developers of homegrown systems can offer. This responsiveness has been highly valued by the clinicians (as cited in the testimonials I included in our submission) who are often frustrated with the much longer times it takes to get a vendor to provide a solution and to make it work effectively.

Our institution is seeking a one-system solution as our new EMR, which necessitates replacing many departmental and niche systems (homegrown and vendor supplied) with the functionality of the main core EMR from a single vendor. This dependency on a single vendor brings the downside of losing functionality that have enabled clinicians, using those niche systems, an efficiency and patient safety that was custom built around workflows that many vendors, especially of large generalized and broad-scoped products, do not understand or support well. Part of my purpose was to emphasize to the vendors and their customers, through the HIMMS community, the need for a responsiveness to some needs (such as signout) not yet well met by vendors’ EMRs, with focus on workflows that are not necessarily well accommodated by the limitations of EMR architectures. As I understand the big picture and visions of the future, large-scale integration of EMRs’ functions over a very broad spectrum of patient care contexts, increasingly important for patient safety and provider efficiency, is calling for single-system solutions, replacing the mix of niche systems in place in many enterprises. Because of this trend, pressure will bear increasingly on the Vendors to do a better job with some neglected workflows and/or support integration of niche systems seamlessly into the larger core systems. URMC has several other examples of niche systems that I’ve been involved with, posing similar challenges to replacing them with single-vendor integrated systems. (My guess is that many large enterprises have this problem and I would welcome resonance with their people.)

Marc Williamson
Lead Analyst/Programmer
Medical Informatics Division
University of Rochester Medical Center
Rochester, NY

I learned about the Stories of Success campaign from a colleague whom read about it in the HIMSS Insider newsletter.  I applaud the commitment of HIMSS to provide a communication vehicle for which to communicate success in patient safety improvements, for the benefit of all providers.    I immediately knew the Mercy Medical Center case study would benefit peers, as we continue to see improvements in all areas of patient safety, cost containment and regulatory compliance, three years after implementing an information technology solution. 

As a Six Sigma Black Belt focused on quality management, I had for years been looking for a way to improve patient safety through better inventory management.  While I knew information technology could help and had a vision of what I was looking for, I wasn’t sure there was a technology that could cost-effectively achieve our goals.  Knowing resources for research and technology implementations were extremely tight, I was limited in my exploration and considerations of possible solutions, especially those requiring consultants, third party implementers and capital equipment.

I had resided myself for years to doing the best I could with what I had.  Much of it being a very tedious, manual process to ensure accuracy for optimal patient safety.  Until, one of our medical device suppliers recommended a specific RFID solution.  I was immediately intrigued because RFID was what I had envisioned and had been looking for, for so many years.   A complete real-time solution available as an operational cost, requiring no capital fees and special approvals, could work with our slim budget.

Upon implementation, we recognized immediate patient safety improvements through real-time visibility to accurately manage expiration dates and efficiently respond to product recalls. Universally, hospitals strive to deliver the best possible care with the highest patient safety standards. For this reason alone, I knew I had to share the benefits of real-time tracking for ongoing patient safety improvements and regulatory compliance, while reducing costs and improving charge capture.  

While I am not shy about sharing our success, I had not pursued an opportunity to communicate to a wider audience how we continue to benefit from RFID for inventory control.   HIMSS commitment to share these stories for the benefit of all peers was the perfect venue. 

Lynda Wilson
Administrative Project Analyst/Certified Six Sigma Black Belt
Mercy Des Moines - Mercy Heart Hospital
Des Moines, IA