Q&A with Memorial Healthcare CIO Tom Kurtz, Part 1: “We Were Ahead of the Game.”

When Tom Kurtz was interviewing for the position of CIO at Memorial Healthcare, it was made clear if he accepted the role, he’d be spearheading a major EHR transformation. But instead of balking at the idea — which would have been understandable, with this being his first foray into healthcare — Kurtz seized the opportunity to “help guide the organization.”

Five years later, Memorial has an integrated platform in place, something that has certainly come in handy in battling the myriad challenges stemming from Covid-19. Recently, Kurtz spoke with healthsystemCIO about his team’s multipronged strategy to maintain care continuity during the pandemic, the hurdles they faced implementing an EHR during a period of significant growth, and the tremendous pride in being an independent hospital.

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Key Takeaways



* Memorial Healthcare, which will celebrate 100 years of independence in 2021, seeks to become a “top-tier community hospital” with world-class offerings in neurology and orthopedics.

* Several initiatives have been delayed to enable IT to focus on managing Covid through three channels: telemedicine, increased bed capacity, and alternative care sites.

* Setting up an alternative care site required “significant coordination across the organization” to be able to “operate somewhat as a practice and somewhat as an ER.”

* Having in-house lab expertise has helped Memorial to maintain short turnaround times for Covid-19 testing, while partnering with long-term care facilities to improve their metrics.





Q&A with Tom Kurtz, Part 1

Gamble:  Let’s start with a high-level overview of Memorial Health System – what you have in terms of the hospital offerings and where you’re located.

Kurtz:  Memorial Healthcare is 162-bed hospital with about 30 practices. We have roughly 100 employed providers, and we cover six counties right in the middle of Michigan. If you drew a line between the cities of Flint and Lansing, we’d be right in the middle.

Two of our spotlight areas that have seen some pretty significant growth over the last five or six years are neurology and orthopedics. We have 11 providers in the area of neurology, with subspecialists focusing on multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, stroke care, and memory management.

We’ve recently brought on some new orthopedic surgeons, and we’ve started doing robotic joint replacements. It’s something new for us as an organization. We have a 99-year history taking care of the healthcare needs of our community as an independent hospital. We’ve seen tremendous growth in the past 5 to 7 as we reach beyond that 6-county range — and far beyond it with our neurology offerings.

 

Gamble:  In terms of that growth in neurology and orthopedics, are you looking to provide services that are difficult for patients to get in your area?

Kurtz:  I think the growth in neurology specifically has been based upon a highly-talented provider who has built a group around his practice and expanded it to a multi-specialty group. He has that vision of growing our community hospital into something that can meet those needs for subspecialty neurology care in a multitude of settings. In fact, we’ve actually started to provide inpatient neurology coverage for other healthcare systems in our area, based upon that growth.

One of our biggest initiatives we’re working on is building a substantial new facility to house neurology, orthopedics and a new community wellness center. The new facility is geared toward patients who are coming from distance ...