Q&A with CIO Patrick Anderson, Part 2: “We’re driving a new model of care.”

For Patrick Anderson, the opportunity to work with an organization that’s doing groundbreaking work with immunotherapy to transform the way cancer is detected and treated was a dream come true. But along with the ability to build decision support capabilities with genomics to determine precise pathways comes quite a daunting problem: harnessing and managing unfathomable amounts of data. It’s enough to turn a dream into a nightmare.

Fortunately, Anderson doesn’t see it that way. In fact, when he came to City of Hope about a year ago, he knew the challenges he’d face as CIO, which included upgrading the entire infrastructure. And while it’s an ongoing task, it’s one he and his team have embraced. Recently, we spoke with Anderson about the “permanent optimization strategy” in place at City of Hope, how he’s using reinforcement to connect IT staff with patients and families, as well as clinicians, and how his past experience helped him build the ultimate toolkit.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Clinical & revenue cycle SWAT teams

* Key part of rolling out Epic: “You have to go back and reassess.”

* Creating a permanent optimization strategy

* The “invasive” data modernization project

* Moving to unified communications to enable flexibility

* CIO’s role in reinforcing the mission – “It’s what motivates them.”

* Capitalizing on his “diverse” career background

* Precision medicine – “It’s about being able to build expertise working with data.”



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Bold Statements

We had over 400 findings, and we closed over 90 percent of those findings just by helping physicians and nurses do things the proper way. It’s important when you implement an EMR that you go back and reassess how everybody is doing and how they’re utilizing it.

It’s been very invasive to do this. But it got us to the point where we can leverage the newer technology of switches and start deploying new capabilities.

Moving to unified communications where you’re converging voice, data, video, and wireless, being able to partner with organizations like Cisco, Microsoft and Dell, and being able to build state-of-the-art facilities is really exciting.

You have to reinforce that constantly, and we do that. We do a lot of work around employee engagement and enrichment, but tying them to the mission is really what motivates them and makes them feel like they are contributing to this wonderful mission here.

Gamble:  Let’s talk about the objectives you had in terms of the Epic migration, and where that project is now, as opposed to when you arrived.

Anderson:  They had already moved to Epic when I arrived. They had been on Epic for about six months, but we had to really work very hard to stabilize it and begin to optimize. That’s what I brought forward when I arrived. I have about 12 years of Epic experience and I was able to bring that forward in driving physician optimization as well as driving high availability as well as governance.

We’ve revamped governance. We put in SWAT teams for clinical optimization and revenue cycle optimization, and we’re on the right path to get the best value out of Epic and to drive the utilization and optimization of the system. We’re getting a lot of help from Epic, along with a few other strategic partners.

 

Gamble:  The SWAT team sounds like an interesting concept. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Anderson:  Sure. We put a SWAT team together of Epic analysts, trainers, and even some revenue cycle people,