Podcast with Dr. Stephanie Lahr: “There Are Hidden Opportunities to Innovate and Create.”

It’s funny; one of the key challenges for healthcare IT leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic is a lack of time. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. And yet, it’s that time crunch that has forced organizations to shorten the decision-making process and make “informed, but expedited decisions,” said Stephanie Lahr, MD. “We didn’t have time for overthinking.”

As a result, the informatics and technology teams at Monument Health, a five-hospital system based in Rapid City, South Dakota, were able to operationalize extremely quickly in preparation for an influx of patients. According to Lahr, who holds both the CIO and CMIO titles, Monument went from doing almost no telehealth visits to more than 600 per day, and set up a nursing triage center within 24 hours. The keys? Having the support of leadership, and teams that are able to come together to achieve a common goal.

In a recent interview, Lahr talked about the organization’s multifaceted approach to continue to provide quality care during the pandemic, the unique challenges rural organizations face — particularly during a crisis, and how disaster preparation is similar to planning a major implementation.

Part 1

Part 2



* Capacity planning & staffing strategy

* Key to telehealth success: “Having everyone swimming in one direction.”

* Replacing at-the-elbow support with self-deployment

* Virtual care’s momentum — “It’s going to be very difficult to peel back.”

* 5G national deployment project

* The “overlooked opportunity” with rural health

* Parallels between go-live planning & disaster preparation

* Value of empathy: “We need to support each other and give each other some extra grace.”



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Bold Statements

We wanted to make good decisions. We didn’t have time for overthinking, having multiple meetings, and bringing multiple different areas together. We couldn’t use our traditional decision-making processes because we just didn’t have the time.

It was very different from my normal informatics, high-touch, at-the-elbow approach to support; it was the exact opposite of that, but we were really upfront about it.

There are hidden opportunities in this for us to innovate and create and push the bounds of what we’ve done before. For the most part, this type of situation typically brings out the best in people and that’s really what we’re seeing.

It’s a little bit similar to a go-live or a major project. You have a lot of people that need to be coordinated, a lot of education that needs to happen, and a lot that is expected but unknown about what that future is going to look like.

This is one of those times when we need those calming factors. We need those connections to each other. And we need to recognize what it is we’re going through, acknowledge it, and let it be what it is. That helps us get through it.

Gamble:  What have you done in terms of staffing? Have you had to ramp up to be able to accommodate more patients?

Lahr:  We’re in the phases of putting together an eight or nine-phase surge capacity plan, which includes everything from the space to the technology to the other equipment needs, as well as staffing. The place we’re at now is putting together those plans so that as we enter into each of those phases...