Mike Canfield, VP of Operations & CIO, Firelands Regional Medical Center, Chapter 1

When it comes to assembling an EHR selection committee, organizations have to think like Goldilocks; not too big, and not too small. Too big of a group means too many opinions to reconcile, and too small gives off the impression that only a few voices count. And so when Firelands Regional put together a group, CIO Mike Canfield opted for somewhere in the middle, a move he believes will pay off come decision time. In this interview, he talks about why the organization is ripping out its EHR system and why it’s critical to have a vendor that will serve as a true partner. Canfield also discusses the major changes he faced after joining Firelands, why having a solid knowledge of project management is a must, and what 20 years in health IT has taught him.

Chapter 1



* About Firelands Regional

* Meditech 5.6.6 in acute, eClinicalWorks in practices

* Looking to layer on analytics

* Patient engagement struggles

* MU final rule delays — “We just don’t have enough time to recover.”

* Bracing for ICD-10

* Ripping out the core EHR — “We’re going to have to be able to do more advanced analytics.”



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Bold Statements

From an interfacing perspective and a staffing perspective, it’s nice to have that commonality, but in terms of actually layering on some tools to allow us to do some advanced analytics across the whole community, we are not there yet.

It’s been, for us, a real struggle to get patients to go to a website to look at their information. This community just doesn’t seem to be very motivated to do that.

If they decide that they’re not going to adopt some of those changes, our organization — and I think a number of others — will not meet it for the year, because we just don’t have enough time to recover.

We’ve done a lot to try to remain ready. We’ve had certified coders and coding trainers on staff for a couple of years now. We’ve been pushing informational on to our physicians pretty much constantly for the last year, trying to help them understand the impact to their practices and doing anything that we can to support them.

We’ve got too many silos of data to be effective going forward. We recognize that at some point, we’re going to have to be able to do more advanced analytics and have better information all tied together for billing and other quality initiatives.

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

Canfield:  Sure.

Gamble:  To give our readers and listeners some background information, can you just talk a little bit about Firelands Regional?

Canfield:  Sure. Firelands Regional Medical Center is a 255-bed hospital. We’re a regional medical center. We’re surrounded by a couple of independent community hospitals that send some of their more complicated cases here, and then anything that gets very complex, we ship out to either Cleveland or Toledo. We’ve got a wide range of services for a hospital our size. We have a very active behavioral health service, both inpatient and out, as well as cancer and complete cardiac care. We’re roughly a $250 million organization in terms of our net revenue.

Gamble:  What’s the closest major city?

Canfield:  We’re located in the north central Ohio, pretty much halfway between Cleveland and Toledo.

Gamble:  You said that you’re surrounded by some community hospitals, and then I know Ohio has some big systems, too.

Canfield:  Exactly. The Cleveland market is heavily consolidated with the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, and the Toledo market is similar with ProMedica and pieces of the Mercy System.

Gamble:  I’m sure it’s an interesting situation for you guys, being somewhere in the middle between the large systems and the community hospitals?...