"‘Freeing the data’ for the purposes of improvement at the point of care has emphasized the importance of choosing and managing relationships with independent medical staff members and affiliated organizations."

Richard Vaughn
CVP & CMIO
SSM Health Care

During his 20 years with SSM Health Care, Dr. Vaughn has demonstrated outstanding leadership and a passion for clinical informatics and health care quality improvement. He has been instrumental in the strategy, planning, development and implementation of Project Beacon, the SSM EHR implementation.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations

Interoperability and advanced analytics remain critical factors in the development and success of Clinically Integrated Organizations (CIOs). Collection of data across organizational boundaries has to be efficient and result in actionable information for both CIO management
and providers. The risk of value based models has to be mitigated by providing excellent insight to operations and performance.

The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier

The implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHR) across the enterprise, including various levels of affiliated providers, has increased the risk of privacy violations exponentially. ‘Freeing the data’ for the purposes of improvement at the point of care has emphasized the
importance of choosing and managing relationships with independent medical staff members and affiliated organizations. The ability to manage the security of thousands of daily clinical
database interactions to the specifics of HIPAA, requires strategies and predictive analytics that allow organizations to focus on high risk areas.

Manner in which data is used to head off problems and complications before they happen

A mature EHR implementation coupled with a drive to transform from volume to value based delivery has allowed us to focus resources on delivering value from the EHR. The EHR has been an important focus point for maturing clinical governance across multiple hospitals
and clinics in 4 states. Development of chronic disease registries, health maintenance functions and advanced clinical decision support programs within the EHR in concert with emerging value based delivery models in our markets.

Thoughts on how IT strategic planning supports organization-wide efforts to improve quality, cut costs and improves efficiency in the Healthcare sector

With a mature EHR implementation, IT strategic planning is increasingly focused on tight integration with clinical governance and systems and technology interoperability with the EHR. The EHR has helped focus the organization on standardization of clinical and operational systems to provide a single platform for care monitored through standardized metrics used in a gradually maturing business intelligence system. EHR application teams are embedded with enterprise clinical improvement teams resulting in efficient quality improvement programs that meet the needs of clinicians and patients.

Technology trends impacting enterprise business environment

Improving the availability and realising the meaning of unstructured clinical documentation through Natural Language Process (NLP) and Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) is
moving beyond promise into reality and will significantly improve the predictive power of analytics- including the point of care. Integrating Shared Decision Making tools within the EHR, managing the ever growing amount of patient generated clinical data from devices outside the
enterprise and recognizing the primacy of the SmartPhone and other personal devices as the platform for care is critical to ongoing success.

Lessons learned and advice for fellow CIOs

Healthcare CIOs must recognize the evolution of clinical leadership in care delivery organizations and partner effectively to assure IT solutions and planning are aligned with clinical vision. Effective IT governance should include clinical leaders that have been nurtured and developed to understand IT value, project management, vendor relationships, and security and infrastructure issues. Successful clinical IT implementation is greatly facilitated by IT team members with significant clinical experience. In an effective IT structure clinical and operational expectations are clearly understood and priorities are clear and accepted.