Matthew Kull, SVP & CIO, Parkland Hospital, Chapter 1

One component that cannot be overlooked when planning a project? The need for agility, according to Matthew Kull, who says that when Parkland Hospital’s newly opened campus was designed 7 years ago, the strategy was to build a platform to support technology — but defer decisions on which devices would be implemented. It’s this kind of decision-making (which may have avoided having a hospital full of BlackBerries) that has made Parkland one of the most respected hospitals in the country. In this interview, Kull talks about the organization’s strategy to move away from customization, how his team tests technologies in mock environments, and their big plans with big data.

Chapter 1



* Parkland’s 870-bed safety-net hospital

* Upgrading to Epic version 2015

* Back to basics — “We’re focused on getting back to the Epic foundation.”

* Data exchange with CareConnect

* IT’s role in Parkland’s 2020 strategic initiative

* “We’re deeply embedded in each of the core enterprise strategic objectives.”

* Facility planning — “The industry changes so quickly.”

* Need for agility with mobile strategies



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

Bold Statements

We’re focused on getting back to the Epic foundation on a lot of our areas where we had customized early on for capabilities that they didn’t have. As Epic has caught up and expanded the platform, we’re doing our best to go back to their products.

We’ve aligned our projects and our roadmap to the 2020 Parkland strategic initiative. We also work with all of our business constituents to ensure that their plans and their initiatives in line with Parkland’s overall strategic objectives are not only technically sound, but can be done in a fiscally responsible way utilizing technology that we are already have in-house.

We are deeply embedded in each of the core enterprise strategic plan initiatives; we don’t separate them. IT, operations, clinical, and finance all have a fairly tight relationship, and we work in concert and conjunction with one another as opposed to splitting initiatives off and running them in their own track.

There are clinical paradigms that have been defined and developed and well-proven, and there are procedures and treatment plans which will continue to be utilized, but it’s really through the application of technology that we’re able to apply those clinical procedures in an appropriate manner so that we are really staying ahead of the curve of illnesses.

When we were talking about a mobile strategy, we discussed it a year and a half before the hospital opened as opposed to seven years ago when the hospital was designed. Had we picked it seven years ago, the hospital would be full of Blackberries.

Gamble:  Hi Matt, thanks so much for taking some time to speak with healthsystemCIO.com.

Kull:  Thank you for having me.

Gamble:  Let’s start by getting some general information about Parkland, starting with bed size and then the ambulatory clinics you have.

Kull:  Parkland Memorial Hospital is Dallas County’s public hospital. We are the safety net for Dallas County. We just completed the opening of a 2.5-million-square-foot campus to serve Dallas County’s most underserved patients. We’re licensed for 870 beds and we see about 1 million outpatient visits a year.

Gamble:  We’ll get into the new campus in a bit, but first, in terms of the clinical environment, you have Epic in the hospital and clinics?

Kull:  Yes. We are a single implementation of Epic for our hospital as well as our community outpatient clinics.

Gamble:  How long has it been in place?

Kull:  We are just approaching 10 years of our EPIC lifecycle. We were a fairly early adopter.

Gamble:  Definitely. What version are you on?