Kathy Ross, VP & CIO, Sacred Heart Health System and Providence Hospital, Chapter 1

If Kathy Ross could offer one piece of advice to fellow CIOs — especially those who are new in the role — it’s this: don’t try to do everything on your own. That might mean finding a mentor, networking with peers, or just reaching out to others going through similar experiences. And in fact, one of the key advantages in being part of an organization like Ascension is the ability to share best practices, something that comes in handy when your team is replacing the acute and ambulatory EHRs at the same time. In this interview, Ross talks about how she balances the roles of CIO at both Sacred Heart Health System and Providence Hospital, the work her team is doing with Optum to give physicians “a clear picture,” and what she believes is the most difficult aspect of the EHR overhaul. She also shares her thoughts on change management, patient engagement, and leadership.

Chapter 1



* Dual CIO role — “It was a challenge initially.”

* Consolidating into one IS department

* “We’re like an IS company within Ascension.”

* Forklift EHR replacement — “We’ve got a challenging year ahead of us.”

* Goal of standardization across Ascension

* Biggest challenge: change management



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Bold Statements

I have a very good directors on site at the two larger hospitals that run the day-to-day operations. That really has helped me to focus on the strategy of the health systems so that I could be more engaged at the executive level to make sure that what we were doing from an IS standpoint supported the business needs of both ministries.

We’re a very unique company and it’s a wonderful organization. On paper, it looks like it might be complicated, but in reality, it works very well.

Within Ascension we’re doing a standard model, which helps for us to start standardizing across the health systems so we can do more data analysis and do more focus on population health.

I think our biggest thing, not just for the physicians but the organization as a whole, is just the amount of change that they’ll have to do so quickly. Because the project is not one you can ease into. You can’t do a rolling implementation — it’s flip a switch and you’re on it.

 Gamble:  Hi Kathy, thanks so much for your time this morning.

Ross:  Good morning, Kate. Thank you.

Gamble:  To get things started, can you just give some basic information about Sacred Heart — what you have in terms of hospitals, bed size, ambulatory offerings, things like that?

Ross:  Actually I have two health systems. We’re part of Ascension Health, so I have Sacred Heart Health System based in Pensacola, Florida, and I also have Providence Health System that’s based in Mobile, Alabama. So that is termed the Gulf Coast market. I have three hospitals that belong to the Sacred Heart Health System, one is in Pensacola, one is in Emerald Coast, which is in Sandestin area, and one is in Port St. Joe, which down on the gulf. Also, as I mentioned, we have the one hospital in Mobile, Alabama.

The primary hospital in Pensacola is about 478 beds, and the smaller hospital in Emerald Coast is about 75 beds. We have like a safety net hospital or critical access hospital in the gulf that’s 19 beds, and Providence is right around 350 beds.

Gamble:  So how does that work for you as far as splitting your time among the different facilities?

Ross:  Originally, it was very challenging. I’ve been doing it now for almost six years and we operated totally independently. Even though both health system were part of Ascension, they still operated locally as independents, so I had two sets of executives, two sets of IS steering committees — it was a challenge initially. Fortunately, I have a very good directors on site at the two larger hospitals that run...