Podcast Q&A with LVHN CIO Mike Minear, Part 2: “If It Doesn’t Work for the Patient, It’s Not Going to Work.”

For someone who has been in health IT leadership roles since the 1990s, as Mike Minear has, it takes much more than a shiny toy to impress them. “I don’t get excited about whiz-bang technology,” said Minear, who has held the CIO role at Lehigh Valley Health Network for six years. “I get excited about what it can do for patients and clinicians.”

Not only should it help make the clinician’s job easier – and the patient experience better – but they should feel “it was the right thing to do,” and should have input into what’s being implemented. It’s that philosophy that has created a “deep partnership” at the 10-hospital organization, and what he hopes will propel them going forward.

During a recent interview with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor at healthsystemCIO, Minear offered perspectives on how LVHN is expanding to better serve patients in eastern and central Pennsylvania — especially those in rural areas; why finding the right vendor partner is critical; and the tremendous benefits he has gained from teaching graduate courses.

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Key Takeaways



* By implementing Vocera’s Ease app — which helps keep family members updated on a patient’s progress — LVHN has increased satisfaction scores while also removing some of the burden on busy clinicians. “If we can use tools to communicate outward, it’s so valuable.”

* For CIOs, the exciting part isn’t the “whiz-bang technology,” but what it can do for patients and clinicians.

* Before any initiative is implemented, it’s critical to have representation from different areas at the table. According to Minear, that “deep partnership across the organization” has been instrumental in LVHN’s success.

* As organizations move further into “the digital age,” it’s becoming just as important to seek input from patients about technology as it is from clinicians.





Q&A with CIO Mike Minear, Part 2 [Click here to view Part 1]

Gamble:  Can you talk about your experience working with Vocera on the EASE app?

Minear:  Ease is very different; we’re excited about it. What’s unique is that it’s not interacting with our patients, it’s interacting with their families, loved ones and friends.

When we started with Ease years ago, it was really only serving the surgery population. At that point, it wasn’t used for a 15-minute ambulatory surgery; it was more for longer surgeries where the patient’s loved ones were wondering what was going on. We offer Ease for the bulk of our inpatient surgeries, and the bulk of patients choose it. When they go into surgery, they give us a list of the family members and friends they want us to connect with and their contact information. We then send messages to them during the surgery and after the patient is out of surgery.

We’ve seen some of the highest satisfaction rates we’ve ever received, but not from the patient. It was their family and friends stating their satisfaction levels; we heard it from the patients secondhand.

And so, we expanded it into some inpatient procedure areas like cardiology—but for procedures, not surgeries. We have some long-term inpatients who are in units for several days due to their diagnosis; we offered it to them so their friends and families could track their status.

Expanding to the ED

Late last year, we brought it up in the ED. This was the first time the Ease app interfaced with an Epic EHR. Before,