Mike Mistretta, CIO, Virginia Hospital Center, Chapter 1

When most people are asked to name to top traits of a leader, the same responses often come to mind — adaptability, vision, and communication skills, to name a few. But one that is often overlooked, especially in health IT, is the ability to “make sound decisions based on the needs of users and patients,” says Mike Mistretta.

In this interview, he talks about why listening and knowing your team is so critical for leaders. He also discusses his team’s strategy in rolling out Epic, why he didn’t hesitate to join an organization that was headed for a transformation, how Virginia Hospital Center has worked to develop (and retain) in-house expertise, and the surprising factor that’s become a recruiting tool for the organization.

Chapter 1



* A community hospital surrounded by IDNs

* Replacing “a mishmash of systems”

* Big-bang strategy – “We didn’t want a disruption.”

* Limiting consultant use

* “This was a fantastic organizational initiative. It wasn’t an IT initiative.”

* Developing in-house super users – “We’re going to be stronger going forward.”

* Stabilization mode



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

Bold Statements

The board basically approached me to start an initiative to replace what I’ll call the “mishmash of systems” we had. For a variety of reasons, they weren’t speaking well together. They weren’t implemented very effectively, and it was becoming a bit of a patient safety issue, as well as productivity issue.

We wanted everything to be as seamless as it possibly could be from a patient perspective. Interestingly, it made it a little more challenging for us from a technical side supporting all the different points of care simultaneously and doing a deeper build to get everything done at the same time. But at the end of the day, we wanted to make sure it was right for the patients.

It’s not their typical model, but being a community hospital, it was just much more cost-effective for us to hire than it was to bring in a bunch of outside consultants at two to three times that rate.

We really just want to make sure we get it right out of the gate and everything is running as optimally as we can get it running. Then we’ll start worrying about or making changes to people’s preferences.

Gamble:  I think the best way to start is with an overview about Virginia Hospital Center — what you have in terms of bed size and where you’re located.

Mistretta:  We are just under 400 beds. I believe our licensed bed count is 397, but it’s kind of misleading because we typically run a census with observation patients that’s been as high as 480 at times. It’s a very busy facility, and we’re looking to expand for that very reason.

Virginia Hospital Center is locate in Arlington, Va., which is right across the river from Washington DC. We’re the last independent hospital in the DC market.

 

Gamble:  And you’re surrounded by some pretty large systems. 

Mistretta:  Yes. Our primary competition on the Virginia side is Inova. Across the river, there is MedStar Health and Johns Hopkins. Those are some pretty big players in the market,

 

Gamble:  And you said looking to expand. Are plans underway now for that?

Mistretta:  Yes. Virginia requires a Certificate of Need (CON) so we have to go through the whole process for that. But we’re actually acquiring a five-acre piece of property from the county next door so that we can build an outpatient services pavilion there and move some services out of the current hospital and retrofit those into beds. We’ll probably hit a total of about 550 in the next 3 to 4 years.

 

Gamble:  That’s a densely populated area, so I imagine there’s a real need to expand out.

Mistretta:  Yes,