Don Reichert, VP & CIO, The MetroHealth System, Chapter 2

When Don Reichert came to MetroHealth six years ago, he had three goals: achieve Stage 6, then Stage 7 recognition, and win a HIMSS Davies Award. Not bad for a safety-net hospital that neighbors two very prestigious systems, Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals. But with the support of the executive team and buy-in from the staff, the dream became a reality. In this interview, Reichert talks about MetroHealth’s multi-year journey from best-of-breed to a core vendor strategy; how he’s been able to lead major change at two different organizations; and how taking analytics to the next level is similar to implementing an EHR. He also shares his thoughts on vendor management — something CIOs aren’t doing as effectively as they can, and the balance leaders walk of taking risks without alienating senior executives.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* EHRs in jail — “It’s developing a true community record.”

* Gearing up for pop health

* Big data with Explorys — “We’re upping our game considerably.”

* Getting “the right vision and support” to win a Davies Award

* Value of “truly thinking outside the box.”

* HIMSS Stage 7 as a checklist

* “We’re always trying to be one step ahead.”



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Bold Statements

We recognize that this is where everything is going. From a contractual standpoint, organizations are also looking to potentially take on more risk, and you have to have good numbers. You have to have a good strategy. You have to have good systems. Otherwise you’re going to lose your shirt.

With the age of mobility, there are a lot of things you can do and have in your little black bag that can help keep patients healthy and try to find better ways of customer service and delivery of care.

This is not something that you’re going to put together in a year and be done. The tools are going to evolve, the analysis is going to evolve, and you’re going to be looking at different types of skills sets. We’re going to start seeing the evolution of the data scientist that has been common in other industries.

Clinically and business wise, where did we want to go? How did we want to leverage the EMR? That was really the message that the CMIO and myself wanted to deliver to the organization, and we did.

Too many times, people look at this and say, ‘this is going to cost me hundred million dollars to do this.’ Well, you have to have the right people in place. You have to have the commitment from the top-down. You have to be open to change — if you’re not, then you’re never going to succeed.

Reichert:  One of the things we’ve also done — and we’re one of a few in the country — is we’ve have taken Epic and put it in the jail system here. Not in prison, but the jail system. They’re two distinct things. What we found out in talking to the county was, if they had a prisoner, they would get their care here at Metro. It would take two police officers, with a car, and they would be here an average of three to four hours. That’s a lot of money being spent in what would be considered unproductive time from an employee standpoint.

We’ve introduced Epic into the environment. When you think about a jail, even though it’s short term, there’s three different phases: there’s an ambulatory phase, there’s a potential ED phase, and then there’s a potential inpatient phase. Epic doesn’t sell a jail package. But what we did is we worked with Epic in developing a package that takes the best of all three of those modules to work in that area. We’ve set up video visits. For example, from a psychiatry standpoint, we can have video visits with the inmates. We do lab tests,