Ken Deans, VP & CIO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center, Chapter 2

For the past few years, health systems across the country have been stuck in constant implementation mode, and Chesapeake Regional Medical Center is no exception. So when the organization made the decision to migrate to Epic, leadership decided to leverage the expertise of a seasoned user, which would enable Chesapeake “focus on innovation instead of just putting in systems.” In this interview, Deans talks about his team’s Epic rollout strategy, their big plans with big data, and their “dynamic” multi-year business plan. He also discusses his leadership style, why it’s important to strive for perfect, and why anyone who isn’t nervous about ICD-10 is either “very impressive or naïve.”

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Focus on analytics — “Information is what you need to focus on the running the business”

* Enterprise 5-year IT strategic plan

* “Each year you have to reassess it and be willing to move and change.”

* Communication strategy

* Timing of MU & Epic go-live

* ICD-10 – “America is not prepared for it.”



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Bold Statements

We have a whole lot of data. What we don’t have a lot of, unfortunately, is information, and there’s a pretty significant difference between the two.

We are anxiously awaiting our implementation just for that perspective. You’ll already have an integrated database on the back end, now it’s putting visual dashboards in front of nearly every user to understand what they themselves, individually, are doing, versus just at the higher level.

You must be as much operationally focused as you are technologically focused, because the two go hand-in-hand today more than they ever have before.

We will forever have Meaningful Use requirements on us going forward. So you wouldn’t have to necessarily time go-lives surrounding that per se, because like accreditation and all the other regulatory requirements we have to meet every day, it’s a forevermore thing.

I’m less worried about the education and more worried about the software and processes that are embedded in the software. And it’s not just any particular software — it’s all the moving parts and components and pieces that healthcare has. That’s really where I think I’m worried.

Gamble:  As far as data management, I wanted to talk about some of the work you’ve done there and your strategy for dealing with these huge amounts of data that everyone’s working with.  I want to talk about your strategy there.

Deans:  If you’re referring to clinical data repositories, that’s a major component for us. Certainly it exists today and we’ve had focused there for quite a while, because I think one of the problems with healthcare is we have a whole lot of data. What we don’t have a lot of, unfortunately, is information, and there’s a pretty significant difference between the two. So we put a lot of emphasis and focus there historically, because information is what you need really to focus on running the business. So with our current partner, we’ve had a clinical data repository in for six to seven years, and we had a bit of one prior to that with the predecessor and have done a lot surrounding that. We’ve tried to make a move toward data analytics and what I would call evidence-based management of the business, beyond just evidence-based clinical efforts. That is paramount to us.

Part of our future-forward movement has included pretty strong requirements whichever way we would have went, and we need to sustain that and, in fact, want to grow it. So we’ve made sure that has been part of our go-forward plans with Epic. I think one of the differentiators between them and some of the ...