Michael Martz, CIO, Ohio Valley Health Services, Chapter 1

“Are you out of your mind?” It was the reaction Mike Martz received when he left Meadville Medical Center, the community hospital that was one of the first in the country to implement Meditech 6.1, only to do it all over again at a two-hospital system with a lean budget. But to Martz, it was a chance to drive positive change; not just by migrating to a new platform, but by forging a new path at an organization that didn’t have a CIO. In this interview, he talks about how he’s applying lessons learned from the previous Meditech migration to the current initiative, why he believes big bang is the only way to go, and his approach to being the new CIO. Martz also shares his thoughts on how to build credibility with senior leaders, and why it’s essential to be recognized first as a executive.

Chapter 1



* About Ohio Valley Health Services

* “Informal” partnerships with area hospitals

* From Meditech Magic to 6.1

* Mandatory training to prepare for go-live

* Physician-led initiative — “They’re making a lot of the decisions.”

* Big bang vs. phased rollout

* “I’m not sure we had much of a choice.”



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Bold Statements

 We can best serve our patients when we have a single unified patient record — the same patient information, no matter what our setting of care is. So wherever Meditech can do the job, we’re going to go with it first. Where it cannot, then we’ll look at other systems, but keep them as tightly integrated as possible.

We provided a lot of options on physician training, including classes that they could go to and at-the-elbow support. We built computer-based training that we gave them on a thumb drive so they can take it home and do it themselves. We tried to give them every possible option, but what we failed to do was mandate the training.

They’re validating a lot of the decisions and they’re making a lot of the decisions. They’re helping review the build and guide us through the build to make sure that we provide them actually meets their needs.

We will also split them into separate groups when we get into individual pieces that only affect ambulatory or only affect acute, and I think we’re getting much better participation here and physician engagement and hopefully better decisions as a result of that structure.

If you don’t go big bang, you then have to integrate modules of the new system with modules of the old system, and you keep shifting those integrations as you bring each module live. It is a very complex, very messy, and very error prone process to try to bring up a system one piece at a time.

Gamble:  Hi Mike, thanks so much for taking some time to speak with us.

Martz:  Hi Kate, I’m happy to.

Gamble:  So if you could give us a little bit of information about Ohio Valley Health Services and Education Corporation.

Martz:  Right, starting with the long name. We’re a two hospital system based in Wheeling, West Virginia, with a second hospital right across the river in Martins Ferry, Ohio. Combined, we’re about 340 licensed beds between the two, roughly 1600 staff, and all the normal ambulatory sites, with various specialties such as the Orthopedic Center of Excellence, Oncology practices — a pretty broad range. Wheeling is a small city; we are in an urban area. We do have competitors and friends around us in the marketplace, so we try and be as lean and aggressive as we can, and we work to partner with other smaller hospitals in the region to provide lab services and whatever collaboration they need so that we’re all working effectively for our patients.

Gamble:  And is that pretty informal or is there like a more formal group as far as the smaller hospitals you collaborate wi...