Russell Branzell, President & CEO, CHIME, Chapter 1

Anyone who knows Russ Branzell knows that he doesn’t shy away from making big statements, and he doesn’t mince words. So when the CHIME President says, “Everyone has to up their game,” he means it — and it be would be wise to listen. In this interview, Branzell talks about the skillsets all health IT leaders will need to help transform the industry, what he hopes to see in the Meaningful Use stage 3 final rule, and the enormous impact a 90-day reporting period would have on both hospital and physician practices. He also discusses CHIME’s Patient ID challenge, the personnel moves that he believes will help improve the organization, why CIOs shouldn’t be afraid to plagiarize, and what attendees can expect at the upcoming Fall Forum.

Chapter 1



* State of Meaningful Use

* Stage 2 modifications — “The relief I know the industry’s been wanting”

* Focus of Stage 3: security, clinical decision support & patient engagement

* Potential impact of a 90-day reporting period

* CHIME’s Patient ID challenge

* Crowdsourcing — “We’ve tried since day 1 for this to be 100 percent transparent.”



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Bold Statements

People are placed in a pretty precarious position to either assume that it’s going to occur, or assume it won’t occur, and then try to have to go back and try to deal with a year-long reporting period, which in many cases most won’t be able to do.

I don’t think we are in massive disagreement conceptually with stage 3’s overall direction. I think our concern more still is timing and whether we’ve let stage 2 mature enough to get the process improvements and the outcome improvements.

We continue to believe that an entire year of reporting is burdensome for most that are out there, because not all of this is completely integrated into the processes and the solutions that they’ve purchased, so there’s some degree still of work that needs to occur that’s distracting from patient care.

We think it will not only enable advancement of patient care and patient safety and reduce costs, but more importantly, this is about enabling the patients out there in our industry and the families that are trying to navigate care systems that are out there.

This isn’t going to be the wherewithal of all solutions; it’s still going to take other technologies to be all brought together under an umbrella called a patient identification system. But we still need everybody else in the industry continuing to advance their areas of specialty, whether it’s biometrics or patient matching algorithms or anything of that nature.

Gamble:  Hi Russ, thank you so much for taking some time to speak with us, as you always do.

Branzell:  Absolutely, my pleasure. Thank you.

Gamble:  When I was thinking of some of the things I wanted to talk about, I always want to check in on Meaningful Use and I think I figured that by the time we spoke, we would have more answers, but that’s not really the case. So if you wouldn’t mind, let’s kind of give an update on where things are with Meaningful Use as far as stage 3 moving closer to finalization, and the stage 2 modifications.

Branzell:  Absolutely. We’ll start with stage 2. I think we’re all anxiously watching for email, maybe even as soon as today, on the possibility of getting the final rule adjustments that we need. We know that has taken a little bit longer than it should and we’re waiting for that final release of the rule modification that gives a similar relief that I know the industry’s been wanting for the most part, as well as the opportunity to set us up possibly for a greater success moving into stage 3.

Speaking of stage 3, we continue to look forward for finalization of that rule. I know there are a lot of different thoughts in the industry re...