OR "face lift"

My thanks to Barb Bestor, Operating Room Manager, and to the OR staff who worked on what Barb calls “a wonderful face-lift.” The crew of 16 was at Community General on Saturday to help clean, move, re-organize, re-stock and completely re-vamp the sterile storage areas.

The result? Hallways are clear and clean, clutter has been reduced. It looks good and, as Barbara tells me, it helps assure safe practices.

In the photo, from left to right are Julie Vecchio and Karen Stuber, both RNs, along with surgical technicians Megan Barnes-DeRusha, Jennifer Soury, Karen Smith, and Beth Foster.

Thanks to all who helped!

State grant to start health information exchange

Yesterday Governor David Patterson announced the award of $105 million to 19 health information exchange (HIE) projects across New York State. This includes an award for the HIE being planned for Onondaga County. The local grant will be announced Monday (March 31) at a press conference in which I will participate.

The project in Onondaga County[1] will join with one in Broome County to develop an electronic information exchange in Central New York that will make available patients’ radiology, laboratory, and prescription data among physician offices, laboratories, pharmacies and hospital emergency departments. A study showed that such an HIE has the potential to reduce medical errors, to reduce unnecessary tests, and to improve care delivery in Central New York.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR)[2] called such regional health information organizations (or RHIOs) “a promising new type of health care organization,” but asked “can these new entities…survive?” A handful of RHIOs are currently working in the US, and there are “some 100 or 200 more in development.” A number of such organizations are starting in New York, thanks to seed money provided by state government under its HEAL[3] grant program.

RHIOs are important because, despite all the computers used in health care, patient health information systems do not talk with one another. The RHIO that is planned for Central New York would allow patient data, including test results and prescription information, to be available through the Internet among hospitals and medical offices.

If there are big advantages to RHIOs, there are also big obstacles, as I have discussed. RHIOs need large capital investments to get started. They require cooperation among hospitals, labs, doctors, public agencies. They must have systems for assuring confidentiality, and they must overcome the lack of industry-wide technical standards.[4]

The local sponsor[5] of the RHIO is working on a business plan that will use the savings generated by the exchange to fund its ongoing operating costs through health insurance companies. That means the health insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors business will all have to agree on the business plan and will all have to forge agreements with the RHIO to make it a reality.

Yesterday’s HEAL grant awards is a promising start for this project. But it is a beginning, not the end.

Those of us who provide health care – and those who pay for it – will have a lot more work to do to make such a health information exchange a reality. And now is the time to start.


[1] The Onondaga County project is sponsored by the Health Advancement Collaborative of Central New York, of which I am the Secretary.
[2] Adler-Milstein, Julie and Jha, Ashish, “Fledgling Firms Offer Hope on Health Costs,” Harvard Business Review, March 2008, pp. 26-28
[3] Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers (HEAL NY)
[4] Adler-Milstein and Jha.
[5] Health Advancement Collaborative of Central New York.

Their words say it all

At Community General Hospital we’re working on plans to convert the former nursing home facility into a new acute care medical-surgical facility, thanks to a multi-million grant from New York State that is being made available to implement the decisions of the Berger Commission. This has us focused on the future and the many decisions that are necessary to update our hospital services.

This month I had occasion to meet with the former managers of our 50-bed nursing home facility, which closed on January 11, 2008. Along with the staff, these managers and clinical leaders worked hard to assure that the residents and families were respected during the difficult closure process. As they did so, the staff and managers faced transitions of their own as they sought positions within Community or elsewhere.

Despite their personal concerns, they did a great job with those entrusted to their care, as evidenced by the outpouring of appreciative words from the residents and family members that I have accumulated in my top drawer these past several months.

Their words say it all:

▪ “Thank you for acts of kindness and concern for me on this difficult time…”

▪ “Thank you for all you did to care for my mom…I am forever grateful.”

▪ “You are all missed and thought of with great affection…”

▪ “You… took excellent care of our mother….The sixth floor at CGH has the best care and staff…”

▪ “Due to the Berger Commission … we unfortunately had to find a new home for [our mother]….Although the move went well, we feel she missed the comforts and friends she had grown to enjoy the past three years…”

▪ “My heartfelt thanks to east and west for the loving care which was always the best…”

▪ “I thank you for always making [our mother] comfortable and being there for her no matter what her mood or condition. I know if she could talk she would say thank you with all her heart and a wink!”

▪ “Your dedication, hard work, and sensitivity in sometimes difficult circumstances have been an inspiration to our family…”