Podcast Q&A: CIO Dan Nigrin Talks Integration, Vaccines & the Rise of RPM

Winston Churchill famously said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

In healthcare, that crisis, of course, is the Covid-19 pandemic, which has played a critical role in advancing digital tools — and changing the way care is delivered. “It has been eye-opening,” said Dan Nigrin, MD, who has served as CIO at MaineHealth since January.

The challenge going forward will be to ensure that the industry doesn’t lose momentum, which would certainly be a waste, noted Nigrin, who has more than 25 years’ experience as a pediatrician. Instead, he believes healthcare has an enormous opportunity to leverage the lessons learned during Covid-19 and create “a new standard of care.”

Recently, Nigrin spoke with healthsystemCIO about how his team is working to optimize and streamline processes to improve the experience for both patients and providers, and why physician satisfaction should be top of mind for all leaders. He also talked about transitioning from pediatrics – and city life in Boston – to a large system in Maine, and what his team is learning by participating in the Arch Collaborative.

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Key Takeaways



* Starting with a new organization as vaccine rollouts began was “trial by fire” for Nigrin. On the plus side, “It forced me to get to know my team very well and collaborate with peers right out of the gate.”

* At one point, MaineHealth had administered one-third of all Covid vaccines in the state, many of which took place at a converted racetrack. “It’s been a very successful enterprise.”

* The fact that MaineHealth had recently become a system with a central decision-making body allowed the organization “to be more nimble and to deploy solutions more efficiently” during the pandemic.

* Because of two key factors – its rural status and the average age of patients – MaineHealth continues to leverage telephone and video visits to engage with, and remotely monitor, patients.

* Leveraging technology to monitor patients remotely has led to significant drops in 30-day readmission rates, particularly in those with hypertension. “It’s been really successful.”





Q&A with Daniel Nigrin, MD, Part 1

Gamble:  Can you provide a brief overview of MaineHealth – what you have in terms of hospitals and how the organization is structured?

Nigrin:  Sure. MaineHealth is the largest healthcare system in northern New England, serving Maine as well as Northern New Hampshire. We have 12 hospitals, about 22,000 employees, 1700 physicians, and an employed medical group. We do roughly $3 billion per year, and we offer the typical services you’d see in a large system, including home health and behavioral health. We’re headquartered in Portland, which is where our flagship facility — Maine Medical Center — is located. It’s our largest facility, with about 650 beds. And then the remainder of our facilities are scattered throughout Maine and New Hampshire.

It’s an organization that’s very community-centric. In fact, the mission statement for the organization is ‘working together so our communities are the healthiest in America.’ The word ‘together’ is emphasized in a big way; we really do feel as though we’re an essential component of the community and are working collaboratively with the community to achieve that vision.

Lastly, it’s a relatively new system. We only officially unified in the last couple of years. Prior to that, it was a looser affiliation of several facilities. But it’s formally one organization with a single board. To some degree,