Mark Kilborn, CIO, Springhill Medical Center, Chapter 2

Springhill Medical Center has history of doing things differently. In fact, its founder, Dr. Gerald Wallace said he wanted an organization that would “rewrite the traditional and make the most advanced a common occurrence.” The organization has done just that, becoming the first hospital in the state to achieve Stage 7, and doing so with an entirely outsourced IT department. In this interview, CIO Mark Kilborn explains how he engages Allscripts as any CIO would despite the arrangement (and in fact, is “a very difficult customer”). He also discusses the benefits of being a vendor showcase, how the organization leverages its high-level IT adoption to recruit clinicians, and the “drive” that has made Springhill so successful.



Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Docs pushing for CPOE — “That tells me they’ve embraced technology”

* Going live with Allscripts in 2004 (pushed back by a hurricane)

* “Workflows have changed dramatically.”

* Keeping clinicians “happy”

* Outsourced IT department — “My job is to be CIO.”

* IT as a “diving buddy check”

* Honesty in vendor-client relationships



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Bold Statements

For the doctors to come forward and say they want to make the EHR mandatory tells me that they have embraced technology at Springhill Medical Center. And that’s evidenced by seeing how these guys practice and the efficiencies that they’re seeing day in and day out.

A written order takes something like two to two and a half hours to execute from the time it’s written to verification and delivery. It’s something like 35 to 40 minutes when it’s done electronically. Think about that when you’re talking about healthcare, which is so centered around the expedient delivery of care. That’s huge; that’s absolutely huge.

You’re always going to get somebody that’s unhappy with something or they want you to reduce the number of clicks or they need this information or that information, but overall, I’d say we have a very happy community.

It’s worked because the people in IT understand their role, and we have a great end user community that has embraced the EMR. We never lose sight of the fact that while we’ve got these great tools at our disposal, it still takes highly educated, discipline, well-trained, compassionate caregivers to pull it all together.

Gamble:  At this point, do you have physicians that are both owned and affiliated with the system?

Kilborn:  We only have a handful. This organization never did really get into the big practice move back in the 90s when everyone was buying up physician practices.

There’s something else I want to point out about the system and adoption by the physicians. The only physicians that were required to do CPOE when we first went live were our ER physicians. For all the other doctors that came in here, it was up to them to decide if they wanted to chart on paper or on the system. So for several years we teetered around 40 and 50 percent of the physicians choosing to put their own orders in with CPOE versus writing the orders and handing them to somebody else.

The doctors themselves came to hospital leadership and said, ‘It’s time to make this mandatory.’ They wanted everyone singing off the same page of music. It’s extra work for the physician, but it helps ensure quality care. For the doctors to come forward and say they want to make the EHR mandatory tells me that they have embraced technology at Springhill Medical Center. And that’s evidenced by seeing how these guys practice and the efficiencies that they’re seeing day in and day out.

Gamble:  Right. So now, when was the EHR actually implemented?