Dan Howard, Site CIO, Loma Linda University Health, Chapter 1

As site CIO at Loma Linda University Health, Dan Howard’s goal is to strike the right balance between helping facilities meet their individual needs while ensuring that they align with the health system’s overall strategy: kind of like the old bumper sticker saying, ‘Think locally, act globally.’ Not an easy job, but one he hopes to accomplish, particularly as the industry transitions toward a value-based reimbursement model. In this interview, Howard talks about how Epic CareConnect is helping to position the organization for population health, why hospitals sometimes need to act more like a vendor, and how payer incentives are changing the game. Howard also talks about how he’s able to leverage his experience in project management, and the question CIOs should constantly be asking.

Chapter 1



* About Loma Linda

* “Roving CIO role” working with partner hospitals

* Local vs global strategy

* “Interesting conversations” around IT governance

* Acting as a service provider with CareConnect — “It’s new territory, but we’re excited.”

* Helpdesk support during an EHR go-live — “That has definitely strained our resources.”



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Bold Statements

There are some IT governance discussions about that — who owns the data, what do the workflows look like in terms of optimization, what can Loma Linda extend to that partner in terms of EMR instance, what is global to the whole shared single database, and then what also would be considered an optimization at a facility level?

For the most part, they are productive conversations. But Loma Linda has been pretty intentional about ensuring that globally, we all agree on the guidelines of what’s being offered, and so it is a shared collaborative as we try to build the clinically integrated network.

We’re almost turning into a vendor because now we’re beholden to these other organizations — we’re extending our version of Epic to them, but they’re also using us as a service provider. And so it is a little bit different situation, and it’s definitely new territory for Loma Linda, but we’re very excited about it.

There are a lot of things that we’ll be able to collect from a data perspective in terms of are we meeting our metrics, are we meeting our SLAs, what are the complaints that we’re hearing. All those will become lessons learned for future implementations.

Gamble:  Hi Dan, thanks so much for taking some time to speak with us today.

Howard:  Thank you, Kate. I appreciate it.

Gamble:  Sure.  So to give our readers and listeners some background, can you talk about Loma Linda University Health — what you have in terms of hospitals, things like that?

Howard:  Yes, absolutely. Loma Linda University Health is located in Southern California. It is a six-hospital, faith based teaching institution with revenues in the six billion dollar range. But we have an adult acute care hospital, children’s hospital, a heart institute and two-multifaceted community hospitals, and we are the level one trauma center for the San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

Gamble:  And there’s a facility or a campus that opened recently?

Howard:  We do have a Murrieta campus in Murrieta, California; which is about an hour south of the main campus, and that has been opened since 2012. That’s 106-bed community hospital.

Gamble:  Okay. And in terms of your role, you’re a site CIO at a certain location? How does that work?

Howard:  I’m a site CIO for the partner hospitals, and that comprises of one community healthcare district, which is San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital. And then I have a roving CIO role where I work with other partner hospitals who are CareConnect initiatives that we’re doing at Loma Linda currently.