“Clinical Transformation Project Powers URMC Strategic Plan”

Today, numerous providers deliver health care across a variety of settings, creating new communication and patient safety challenges. Our ability to realize the goals enumerated in our overall 2007-2012 Strategic Plan – especially, enhancing the quality and safety of patient care, and growing our signature disease and science research programs into national magnets – hinges on our ability to communicate information across our health system. This challenge in turn rests squarely on the extent to which URMC can truly harness comprehensive, integrated IT (information technology) solutions that foster collaboration and streamline work, making IT a strategic investment for the years to come.

Dubbed the “Clinical Transformation Project,” the name itself hints at just how much Medical Center leaders expect that this venture will help create safer, higher quality care through an improved work flow marked by increased efficiency, connectivity, and easier access to shared clinical information.

Advancing Responsibly

At the project’s start, URMC leaders engaged consultants at Deloitte, who reiterated that this project is absolutely imperative if URMC is to continue to compete nationally for talented recruits and governmental research funding. And since this technology change represents such a massive undertaking – and ultimately, since its success hinges on the extent to which affected users embrace these new solutions – URMC leaders have conducted a thorough planning process. URMC tapped a 200-person, multi-disciplinary Provider Advisory Committee to gather critical, front-line insight into how (and how much) faculty and staff rely on clinical information technology tools to perform their jobs (see accompanying chart for goals jointly identified by user groups and leadership). This advisory committee wrapped up a rigorous, 6-month selection process, unanimously recommending Epic Systems as its top-choice vendor partner. Contract negotiations with this Wisconsin-based software solutions company were finalized in September 2009.

Scaling Back Initial Scope

Like many capital projects slated to start this year, URMC leaders – in light of the bleak national economic forecast – carefully re-analyzed the financial feasibility of the project, ultimately deciding to scale back the project’s initial scope by 20 to 25 percent (read about the included components, here). URMC hopes to secure $8 million for the project through the $19 billion pot of federal stimulus money earmarked by President Obama for revamping health care technology and recordkeeping nationwide.

In August 2009, the State Hospital Review and Planning Council (SHRPC) gave URMC the nod of approval to embark on this $49M venture to revolutionize patient care. While timing and project scale continue to remain flexible, the members of the project’s clinician-led implementation team are attending Epic training in fall 2009. Come February 2010, this team will spend a full year “in the trenches,” working closely with subject matter experts within departments scheduled for the system’s initial roll-out (which includes both Strong’s and Highland’s inpatient units, EDs, pharmacies and oncology departments). This implementation team will actively seek user participation and input as the model is reviewed, configured, and tested.

Come 2011, Strong Memorial staff will undergo intense user training, which is expected to wrap-up before the hospital’s system goes live in spring 2011. Afterward, Highland users will begin training, prepping for that hospital’s go-live in fall 2011. Upon this completion, URMC leaders expect that our IT infrastructure will be on par with that at the nation’s top academic medical centers (AMCs).

For a more detailed project update, read the latest in the May/June issue of URMC Pulse, or in the Sept. 14 edition of URMC Today.

Click here to read the RAND report, detailing why embracing new Healthcare Information Technology solutions is critical.