Mark Lauteren, CIO, University of South Alabama Health System, Chapter 2

When Mark Lauteren started as CIO at University of South Alabama in the spring of 2013, he had two major goals: facilitate seamless integration of data throughout the system, and improve customer service within IT. Sounds simple, right? Luckily he had one major factor on his side — the organization’s willingness to change. In this interview, Lauteren talks about what it took to clean up a fragmented IS department, the gargantuan effort taking place to create ‘one patient, one record,’ why his team doesn’t ‘just say no,’ and the never-ending chess match CIOs must play to keep data secure. He also discusses what it was like to replace a long-time CIO, the mentors who taught him well, and why he takes time to give back.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Standardization across the system — “The folks wanted change.”

* Right people in the right seats

* Weekly strategy sessions — “How do we get to where we need to be?”

* ICD-10 — “We’ve done everything that needs to be done.”

* Attesting to MU 2 & planning for stage 3

* Data security — “It’s a never-ending chess match.”

* Dealing with research data



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Bold Statements

There’s a lot of focus now of getting people up to speed on how to do the coding and the different programs that you have for ICD-10 versus ICD-9. We think we’re ready for it, but the proof will be in the pudding when in October we’re able to drop bills and our payers properly capture them.

We have to work with our vendors to make sure that they’re ready. For the most part, we’re at their mercy for functionality, then it’s a matter of how do we implement those functionalities that are needed.

It’s a never-ending war or chess match that goes on forever, because every time we tighten something up somewhere, someone else seems to find a way to get around it somewhere else.

We’re not going to call individuals out, but we are going to point out when things have happened and how they’ve happened so that hopefully others will learn. We’re not going to say, ‘Mark did this.’ We’re going to say “This was done in our organization. Here’s an example of something you shouldn’t be doing.’

Gamble:  So it really seems there’s been a lot of a change in the culture of the organization since you arrived, and that you had a pretty big task as far as coming in and making some of these changes to IS. I imagine that must have been pretty daunting in the beginning.

Lauteren:  I think it was and it wasn’t. I’ve had some great support, first, within the department. The folks, I think, wanted change. They felt that they needed to change internally. And then my peers, the other administrators within the health system, have all felt that they needed to make their own changes, so we’re all going through this metamorphosis, if you will, within the whole health system. Historically, the health system had been a very siloed organization. The Children’s Hospital didn’t work directly much with the medical center, which didn’t directly work much with the physician practices, which didn’t work with the Cancer Institute. So we’ve been working very hard since even before I got here to standardize and streamline those.

Actually, the first group across the health system that was actually standardized was the IS department, and so that’s sort of the cataclysm that’s happening, we’re getting these different things, and then you add into that the changes in healthcare that are driving change in general. In Alabama, Medicaid has implemented a program called Regional Care Organizations (RCOs) that are going to drive us to a capitated rate for all of the Medicaid ...