Ed Grogan, VP & CIO, Calvert Health System, Chapter 3

In the current health system landscape, where organizations just keep growing, Calvert Health System is considered to be quite small. But it’s a “mouse that roars,” according to CIO Ed Grogan, who has spent the past 12 years leading Calvert’s transformation from a small hospital to a dynamic health system. In this interview, he talks about the Maryland eCare initiative and partnerships that have expanded Calvert’s reach and helped improve care for patients across the state. He also discusses the organization’s comprehensive EHR-selection process — and why they ultimately chose Meditech; their work with CRISP, including plans to implement a “Magic button” for physicians; the importance of team chemistry; and his “passion for technology integration.”

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3



* Best-of-breed affiliation strategy

* Staff retention — “Success energizes people.”

* Learning “team chemistry” from Coach K

* Participative meetings

* 21 years with Inova — “I wore a number of hats there.”

* A passion for technology integration

* Riding The mHealth wave



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Bold Statements

That clinical collaboration helps improve our care protocols and helps improve the quality of care we can deliver at the local level.

Our philosophy is we want to provide care for those working in the organization so they can care for our patients better.

Having talent is important and retaining the talent is important; it’s vital. But just as important is having good team chemistry, and I think we have that here.

It’s very much a participative approach, and that helps generate esprit de corps, gets folks engaged, generates understanding regarding projects and things, and makes us successful.

I’ve leveraged my education and experience to focus on technology integration, which is one of the passions that I have, and to try to leverage that to help things moving forward.

Gamble:  I would think something like that is a great win, especially looking at smaller, independent organizations and the things you can do to ensure your survival and really make an impact. Because I can imagine the challenges with how the industry is right now of being an independent organization. Something like this is a game changer, I would think.

Grogan:  Yes. We pay for the service, and how we offset the expense is because we have more diligent care 24/7, we have shorter length of stay. Because we have shorter length of stay, we have fewer lab tests and everything else, so that helps offset the cost. And of course we’re paying for quality, too. But it does basically give the smaller community hospital the ability to not only have the technology, but also to have the clinical collaboration with those at a higher level of care — at the tertiary care center. That clinical collaboration helps improve our care protocols and helps improve the quality of care we can deliver at the local level.

Obviously there are times when we have to transfer out of the ICU or transfer from the ER to a larger, to a higher level of care. But it does help us provide excellent quality at the local level for the things that we do, and it helps maintain our independence, as you were saying. We have sort of a best-of-breed affiliation strategy here at Calvert, where we have the best of breed for ICU telemedicine, critical care affiliation with the University of Maryland. We have some best of breed affiliations for basic cardiology, cardiac surgery, and vascular surgery with MedStar,