Workflow

The hospital is working to integrate systems to it can enable clinicians to use data for more effective decision making.

It’s been 3 months since the IT leadership team here launched a visual management board and started a thrice-weekly huddle. Since then, we have made numerous adjustments to improve our process.

The Department of Health and Human Services has named Beth Killoran its new chief information officer, HHS Acting Deputy Secretary Mary K. Wakefield announced July 8.

Many organizations have a Project or Program Management Office (PMO). If not at an organization wide level, at least within the IT department. There are different models. Some PMOs provide standards, tools, methodology and overall tracking. Others provide this foundation as well as a team of project managers (PMs) who can be assigned as needed to major projects. Our PMO at University Hospitals is the latter model. Our PMO has evolved under our new manager, Joe Stuczynski. He and his team are making significant improvements with the support of IT leadership. They have developed a roadmap for further changes and improvements for the next year. It is refreshing to be in an organization where we are not debating about the tools and whether they are good enough. We are not debating about what projects need to run through the PMO and if everyone needs to follow the standards. Instead, we are embracing and leveraging the tools and the PMO is able to focus on what it should be – tracking projects and providing PMs to manage projects. Our 90 minute weekly PMO meeting is attended by department leadership and PMs. It has a standing agenda that includes: Action Items from previous weeks – represents a level of accountability and tracking Process Updates – keeping everyone informed on changes New Project Requests – these are later vetted through the IT governance process Project Successes – acknowledging what was completed the previous week Architectural Review Overview Dashboard – shows total number of projects with Green, Yellow, Red project health by major area and change from previous week Detailed review of each project in Red Program review – each major area (i.e. business, clinical, ambulatory, infrastructure, security) is on a rotation for deeper dive Scope Reviews for new major projects – provides chance to “connect the dots”, discuss any interdependencies and ask questions Outputs from this weekly review that get posted on our IT visual management board are: Project successes Dashboard of all projects by health status For each project in “Red,” we cover the issues, impacts and the action plan to resolve, as well as risks and mitigation plans. The green/yellow/red is noted for the project overall, as well as scope, schedule and cost. With this information at a glance, it is easy to identify where help is needed and what it will take to move the project from Red to Yellow or Green. Scope reviews for new projects include summary, scope, business objectives, budget, timeline, and team members. Having a chance to discuss interdependencies and raise any questions or concerns is critical for a new project. The PMO has a number of goals. Two are particularly pertinent here: Improve Project, Program, Portfolio Management maturity – “get everyone on the same page” Incorporate a continual self-evaluation process Looking at the last few months, these two goals are clearly being met. And that’s powerful. Blog originally posted on www.sueschade.com.

Medical imaging vendors are operating in a "churn" market, according to a new peer60 report, as hospitals experiment in finding which image sharing features mean the most to them.

3M Health Information Systems has added another physician workflow and analytics tool to its 360 Encompass MD repertoire with its newest tool: Patient Insights Suite. It was announced today at HFMA ANI in Las Vegas.

In an effort to streamline data-heavy applications such as advanced imaging, electronic health records and molecular medicine, Moffitt Cancer Center has launched a new private enterprise network.

Stage 7 is the pinnacle in the move to high-functioning EHRs.

"For every single problem you must have a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary team," says Jeanne M. Huddleston, MD, associate professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic. "The low-hanging fruit in healthcare is gone. Now every problem is going to be hard."

Enables health boards in Scotland to share health information.