"RAC's are driving small hospitals down the tubes. Another are paid for performance and are not being held accountable by anyone because they are producing high numbers recovered."

Lee Powe
CIO
Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital

Lee joined Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital (HCMH) Information Systems team in 2006. He currently holds the Chief Information Officer position and is responsible for the Information Systems and Health Information Management Departments. He has implemented a multi- factor biometric patient identification system using iris recognition and a photograph to increase safety, prevent duplicate medical records and eliminate fraud. Healthcare IT News Best hospital to work 2011 and 2012.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations

One of the major challenges is meeting security and compliance requirements throughout the enterprise, including BYOD management. Another major challenge is obtaining better integration between vendor products and their willingness to be more open to integration.

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

Currently one item that keeps me up at night is Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs). These are companies that evaluate CMS records to recover the money from organizations that they deem have received improper Medicare payments by not meeting medical necessity, etc. The primary concern regarding this is that they are paid for performance and are not being held accountable by anyone because they are producing high numbers recovered. This is driving small hospitals down the tubes. Another issue is medication management which remains a big challenge because you can never really get an accurate patient medication history, and yet, providers are expected to reconcile all patient medications at every transition of care.

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

We have implemented many data mining solutions to help with identifying charge edits along with patient safety issues in real time. Example: when a patient is admitted we have designed an interface message to distribute if the patient is a possible core measure patient.

Technology trends impacting enterprise business environment

The trends that will have significant impact on our enterprise business environment are data mining, mobile technology and security.

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

We are constantly alert for new technology and applications that help the organization. These are presented to the planning committees for review to see if they would work throughout the organization. Basically, communication with all players in the organization and obtaining their input is key.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO

The role of CIO in my organization had been completely IT focused. That role has transformed into bringing the revenue cycle and medical records into the CIO’s scope of responsibility.

Lessons learned and advice for fellow CIOs

Regardless of what hardware or software solutions you implement and how highly rated they are, make sure you measure or monitor their usage. Always consider having a retrain or refresher 6 months after you install it.