Jason Bray, CIO, McAlester Regional Health Center, Chapter 1

It’s hard to find three organizations as different as those in which Jason Bray has served as CIO. He went from a teaching facility that was on the ground floor of the Meaningful Use movement (Oklahoma State University Medical Center) to a multi-hospital health system that embarked on a massive EHR implementation (Methodist Health System), to a rural hospital that is piecing together an integration strategy (McAlester Regional Health Center). In this interview, Bray opens up about how he has benefited from his experiences at both OSU and Methodist (as well as IBM), and talks about the key priorities on his plate at McAlester, from migrating to a Web-based Meditech platform to expanding telemedicine.

He also talks about the many hats he must wear as CIO of a rural facility, what he learned from Pam McNutt about vendor management, the “incredible ride” it was being an early ACO at OSU, and the enormous potential he believes Watson holds.

Chapter 1



* About McAlester Regional

* Taking on bankrupt facilities, but letting them “keep their local flavor”

* Migrating from Meditech 5.6.7 to 6.1.6

* Physician advisory committee: “It’s about standardization, not customization.”

* Challenges of being rural

* Telestroke program & telemedicine in schools

* Planning a network upgrade & refresh

* CIO & information security officer: “It’s not easy.”



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

Bold Statements

What we’re trying to do is not be the big bad wolf and come in and acquire these folks; but instead come in with an independent management style that allows them to keep their local flavor, but where there’s duplicating responsibilities, use that as scale together.

The challenge is getting people to stay here. I think they associate hospitals in Tulsa and Oklahoma City because they’re bigger, as being better, and that’s not the case.

Telemedicine is one of those fun things that people like to talk about and practicality is better now than it ever has been. Getting that across to folks to where they use it is a different thing.

That’s one of the things in rural America — if you do have the luxury of having a CIO, typically that CIO is also the security officer, so all of that falls on me.

Gamble:  Hi Jason, let’s start by getting some basic information about McAlester Regional Health Center — what you have in terms of hospital beds, ambulatory offerings and where you’re located, things like that.

Bray:  McAlester Regional Health Center is a 171-bed hospital in Southeast Oklahoma. We’re actually the largest hospital in Southeast Oklahoma. We have 11 clinics, three urgent care centers, and two diagnostic imaging centers. We are currently managing another hospital that went bankrupt about three months ago, Atoka County Medical Center in Atoka, Oklahoma, which is a critical access hospital. I’ve been here for about 20 months now in this role as CIO and I came from Methodist Dallas.

Gamble:  What’s the nearest city to you, in the Southeast Oklahoma?

Bray:  There are a lot of close cities, but as far as metropolitan areas it’s Tulsa, and that’s about an hour and 30 minutes away.

Gamble:  And are you affiliated with any hospitals or health systems at this point?

Bray:  No. We are independent and we are a city trust.

Gamble:  Inn terms of the EHR environment, what do you have in place in the hospital?

Bray:   We have Meditech 5.6.7, and we are moving to Meditech 6.1.6.

Gamble:  What’s the approximate timeline for that?

Bray:  Next 18 months.

Gamble:  So you’re pretty early in that process.

Bray:  Very early.

Gamble:   And now as far as 6.16, does that include the web-based platform?

Bray:  It is.