Podcast Q&A with Mike Minear, CIO, LVHN, Part 1: “Patients Should Drive Telehealth.”

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



* Lehigh Valley Health Network, a 10-hospital system based in eastern and central Pennsylvania, is rapidly growing, with 2 new hospitals being built, and more in the works.

* Rather than the “big-box hospitals of the past, LVHN is designing smaller, more ambulatory-centric facilities in targeted geographic areas to better serve the patient population.

* Although LVHN has long had the infrastructure and ability for telemedicine, it was used mostly for providers to communicate with each other. The rapid rise in virtual patient encounters during Covid has opened the doors to more utilization.

* Rather than putting the onus on providers, “patients should drive this,” Minear said about telehealth.

* To enable patients to communicate with their families – and physicians to connect with patients without donning PPE – the iPads previously installed in patient rooms had to be rebuilt and reinstalled.





Q&A with CIO Mike Minear, Part 1

Gamble:  Hi Mike, thank you so much for your time. Let’s start with some background information. Lehigh Valley Health Network is a 9-hospital system in eastern Pennsylvania, correct?

Minear:  We’re now 10 hospitals, located generally in eastern Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia and into the Poconos. We’re physically building two new hospitals and planning to build six additional hospitals through partnerships.

We’re growing very rapidly. In addition to our hospitals, we have well over 3 million ambulatory encounters a year. We have large reference lab business that serves other health providers and a lot of other services. We’re about $3.7 billion in revenue.

 

An alternative to “big box hospitals”

Gamble:  That’s interesting that you guys are expanding so quickly. It’s not something we’re hearing a lot. Is that part of the organization’s long-term strategy?

Minear:  Yes. We are growing because we feel there are parts of our market that are underserved, and we would better serve our overall patient population by having additional locations. But when I say, ‘new hospitals,’ these are not the big box super big hospitals of the past. They’re more like an ED with a smaller set of surgical capability and smaller inpatient rooms, because we predominantly provide ambulatory care. It’s trying to fit more of a modern definition of a hospital — fairly small, but integrated with our ambulatory care and ambulatory surgeries, and in very targeted geographic areas.