How
Poudre Valley Health System's World-Class Journey Led to the
Malcolm Baldrige Award
(8/5/2009)
Just over a decade ago, Poudre Valley
Health System (Fort Collins, CO) established its mission to
become an innovative, world-class health care organization
for rural communities throughout northern Colorado, western
Nebraska, and southern Wyoming. A lot can happen in 10 years,
as the hospital recently proved when it became the sole
health care recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award—the highest presidential honor given to
United States businesses and organizations for performance
excellence.
Russ Branzell, vice president and CIO of Poudre Valley,
remembers the "world-class" journey well. "For
us, being committed to excellence also meant being committed
to our MEDITECH system," he says. "Information
technology wasn't the concern of just one person or
department. The concept of using I.T. for quality improvement
actually became our mantra, at every level of our
organization. We found that it enabled us to get closer to
our patients than we ever had before."
The
Evolving Role of the CIO: Inspiring Change
In his role as CIO, Branzell saw I.T. become more prevalent
in health care over the years. "It wasn't so long ago
that most hospital executives working in the hospital didn't
know or care much about computers," he says. "But,
with the explosion of information that's occurred recently,
you've got to have I.T. just to manage it all.
"It was my job to move mountains and get everyone
onboard to not just implement I.T., but use it on a daily
basis. I see CIOs as setting the tone for their organizations,
and really changing the industry as a whole over the next
five years."
Over the last six to 10 years, Poudre has seen its workforce
double, from around 300 physicians to almost 700. To help the
growing staff embrace I.T., Branzell worked closely with the
Board of Directors and Senior Managers to establish buy-in
strategies. From there, they established a Knowledge
Management Team to help get the word out and keep clinicians
focused.
"To be successful, you must clearly define your
objectives, and everyone working in the organization must
believe in them," Branzell says. "All of the people
working for our hospital, from the doctors to the janitors,
consider themselves in the business of providing great health
care. When everyone is connected and focused on the overall
goal, that's when you'll see big improvements."
Integration
and Balanced Scorecards Keep Clinicians Connected
The integration of the MEDITECH system was a major factor in
keeping all clinicians, administrators, and departments
connected throughout the enterprise. Poudre also allowed its
physicians to connect to patient data at home, on their
mobile devices, and in their offices.
"We wanted to give our clinicians the tools they wanted
to use," says Branzell. "That way, we could
encourage them to take ownership over the system—to use
I.T. because it makes care processes easier and safer, and
not because the I.S. department told them they have to."
To measure their quality progress, Poudre Valley employed a
balanced scorecard approach through bConnected, which enabled
the organization to track its strengths and weaknesses, as
well as gauge the success of improvement initiatives.
"We have between 170 and 190 automated scorecards and
associated action plans, which are 100% transparent. Any
department or clinician can look on our system and see all of
the associated information," Branzell says. "This
was particularly important to Baldrige—the fact that we're
actively measuring what physicians do, and the impact their
actions have on patients. We were able to get the scorecards
into a Web format within just a couple months, just in time
for their visit."
Achieving
World-Class Results
Since first starting on its journey to excellence, Poudre
Valley has been recognized with a number of distinctions,
including Magnet status, Thomson Reuters Top 100 Hospitals,
Modern Healthcare's Top 100 Places to Work, and Colorado's
Performance Excellence Award. To Branzell, the Baldrige award
is the icing on the cake, but perhaps not the most telling
result of the organization's success.
"I'm so proud of what this organization has accomplished
over the past 10 years—not just because of the awards,
but because we managed to achieve a 97% employee satisfaction
rating, and a 99% physician loyalty rating among our staff,"
he says. "That means as much to me as anything else,
because when you love to come to work every day, it naturally
follows that you'll want to give the best to your patients,
so they'll love it too. And that's what being 'world-class'
is really all about."
MEDITECH
Medical
Information Technology, Inc.
MEDITECH Circle
Westwood, MA 02090
781-821-3000
www.meditech.com