Siemens IT Adoption Center Speeds Implementation Process

Siemens Healthcare announced the general availability of a new IT Adoption Center framework that provides healthcare organisations with a comprehensive, repeatable, and scalable framework that prescribes, and measures, successful information technology (IT) implementation and post-live adoption. 

The methodology was developed in collaboration with, and validated at, Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA), Johnson City, Tenn., which is a 13-hospital healthcare system serving patients in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. 

Using the IT Adoption Center methodology, MSHA brought 13 hospitals live with a full suite of Soarian Clinicals in 18 months. The most recent go-live was completed in March 2013. Upon acquiring MSHA’s 14th hospital on November 1, 2013, the IT Adoption Center methodology will be used to help Unicoi County Memorial Hospital take part in MSHA’s transformational journey.

“Implementing healthcare IT solutions, such as order entry, is an inherently disruptive process, so we needed to adopt a more prescriptive methodology that could reduce process variation and ensure consistency and accountability throughout the organisation – from pre-implementation to go-live to hand off,” said Morris H. Seligman, MD, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, MSHA.

Now that MSHA is delivering a single, integrated electronic health record (EHR) across all 13 hospitals, the organisation is embarking on implementing Siemens MobileMD® health information exchange (HIE) and patient portal to coordinate care at physician practices – creating a patient-centric record of care that will be available at any MSHA setting.

The IT Adoption Center transformational framework is part of the solutions offered by Siemens Healthcare’s Strategic Consulting Services business. It more predictably enables customers to achieve their strategic, financial, quality, and patient-centric objectives through ongoing implementation and upgrade cycles, post-live adoption, and integration of technology utilisation into roles-based employee performance.

“Bringing new information technology solutions into clinical utilisation is fundamentally an exercise in organisational change management because of the significant impact these solutions have on the way providers work,” said John Glaser, PhD, CEO, Siemens Healthcare, Health services. “With our framework methodology we have worked with Mountain States Health Alliance to create greater alignment from pre-implementation through post-live adoption.”

Post-implementation, the IT Adoption Center enables the measurement and cultural transformation associated with optimal adoption and utilisation of enterprise technology to achieve operating outcomes. The detailed, structured, actionable IT Adoption Center framework is implemented jointly between the customer and Siemens.

“We can now apply the IT Adoption Center methodology to any project that involves technology – whether it is an upgrade or a new purchase,” said Paul Merrywell, Chief Information Officer, MSHA. “This framework allows us to be consistent and organised while utilising a succinct communications approach that helps reduce the uncertainty and concern that is commonly associated with major technology changes.”

“The ability to exchange patient information across the alliance will create a more robust patient experience where providers can gather relevant patient data no matter where they may have interacted with MSHA,” said Dr .Lauro. “Our physicians will have much easier access to important information such as medications, history and test results and they will be able to send new data back to the health system. This creates a more holistic approach to managing our patients, regardless of the setting where they are seen.”

Source: Siemens Healthcare 

13 January 2014