Jamie Nelson, SVP & CIO, Hospital for Special Surgery, Chapter 2

Timing is everything. When the Hospital for Special Surgery was beginning its EHR selection process, Epic released its orthopedic module and announced plans to offer remote hosting. For a hospital that specializes in musculoskeletal health and is located in New York – a city where real estate is at a premium, the decision was easy. Selecting a vendor, however, is just the beginning. In this interview, CIO Jamie Nelson talks about the strategy she used to build an Epic team, why she believes education is the key to data security, and how HSS has made innovation part of its DNA. Nelson also discusses the “boardroom skills” necessary for CIOs, why work/life balance doesn’t truly exist, and the next big frontier for her organization.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Upgrading to Epic 2016

* User Group Meetings — “There’s a lot of sharing.”

* Phishing campaigns & email tags

* “Educating our users is our most important defense around keeping data safe.”

* Aligning hospital & IT incident response plans

* “Innovation is in our DNA. It’s the key to our growth.”

* 3 F’s of a successful CIO



LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements

We’re using a lot of the same governance groups that we did during the implementation to validate which of the changes we’re going to actually implement and use, what needs training, what processes need to change, and what tip sheets needed to be developed.

It only takes one user clicking on it and giving credentials to allow a bad actor and have your data be compromised.

It all gets tied into bundle pricing and pay for performance. It’s not just the first 90 days of care. I think eventually they’ll be looking it at years in terms of what the real options are. Again, that’s where you want to keep your patients engaged, and IT can help enable that engagement.

It’s about innovation in terms of what we can produce here, and commercialize and monetize. It’s about looking at other products and jumping in, and being part of investments and other interesting technologies. Innovation is very important to us; I think that’s really the key to our growth.

CIOs have to be flexible, they have to be fast, and they have to be at the forefront. They have to be with the folks that are working at innovation and thinking about things. In some ways, it’s changing the model where we’re a little bit more conservative, a little bit more methodical.

Gamble:  You said you’ve been live for about a year. What version of Epic are you using?

Nelson:  We’re on version 15, and we’re going onto 16 in a couple of months.

Gamble:  Is it fairly cut and dry — at least as far upgrades go?

Nelson:  Yes, it’s a lot of work though. Our teams are working very hard in terms of evaluating what changes are coming with the upgrade, and then going back to their constituents. And we’re using a lot of the same governance groups to guide us that we did during the implementation to validate which of the changes we’re going to actually implement and use, what needs training, what processes need to change, and what tip sheets needed to be developed. We’re working through all of that now. But Epic has excellent documentation around upgrades and features that are available. So it’s been very helpful for our teams to be able to go through that, and then communicate with their end-users. So far, so good.

Gamble:  Are there users of the orthopedic module that you’ve been in contact with?

Nelson:  At outside organizations?

Gamble:  Yes.

Nelson:  We actually did a few presentations at Epic’s User Group Meeting this year,