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East Jefferson General Hospital Refines IT Direction to Save $25 Million and Defines its Roadmap for Meaningful Use Criteria
East Jefferson General Hospital is a parish-owned hospital that provides a broad range of inpatient acute care, ancillary, and outpatient services for patients in Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans. The hospital has 450 beds, and patients are served by a staff of more than 3,000 team members and over 700 physicians. In 2002, East Jefferson became the first hospital in Louisiana to earn the prestigious Magnet Status for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. In 2006, the organization was one of only a handful of hospitals able to raise their standards high enough to earn the distinction of being renewed as a Nurse Magnet Hospital.
East Jefferson General Hospital
Jim Burton, CIO
“Aspen’s approach to evaluating outsourcing arrangements is pragmatic and efficient. They rapidly gained an understanding of our current arrangement, framed options and cost models, and worked with our senior management team to facilitate an informed decision that set a practical course of action to support our business and clinical goals. With Aspen’s insight and guidance, we changed our sourcing strategy, not only saving millions but also earning a guarantee from the sourcing vendor that the software provided would meet Meaningful Use criteria.”
THE CHALLENGE
Because of its geographic location, East Jefferson has a heightened need for disaster preparedness. When Hurricane Katrina hit the area in 2005, East Jefferson was in the midst of an implementation of their core hospital information system. As a result, the organization extended their existing information services outsourcing contract to a firm that provides healthcare consulting and managed data center services. Beginning in 2007, it included the CIO role and the remainder of the IT department in its outsourcing arrangement. In 2010 East Jefferson recruited a full time CIO to manage the IT function and develop and execute a strategic plan. As part of the strategic planning initiative, East Jefferson needed to assess options related to its IT sourcing strategy, hospital information system, data center, and other IT infrastructure alternatives.
THE SOLUTION
With extensive experience with IT sourcing strategies, transitions, and operations, Aspen Advisors was engaged to assess and validate East Jefferson’s IT direction and sourcing alternatives. This included evaluating the data center and technical environment, current data repository strategy, IT environment and tactical plans, IT staff, resources, budget, and contractual relationships with primary vendors and the current IT outsource provider. Aspen also evaluated the security and implementation status of the HIS including audit results of the pharmacy system and provided recommendations for improvement and moving forward. Specific objectives included:
- Conducting an infrastructure review which included networks, servers, phone, and voicemail system; end-user devices including desktops, laptops, computers on wheels (COWs), and printers; Citrix and remote access, the help desk and desk side support, and the disaster recovery plan;
- Reviewing results of the recently conducted information security review which included comparing results to previous audits, ensuring that the policies required for HIPAA and HITECH regulations were included, and defining recommendations for the overall security program;
- Reviewing reporting and data flow identifying source systems including the flow of patient medical record numbers (MRNs), the system of record identification for key data elements, and the inventory of current reporting tools and processes;
- Reviewing the HIS platform and clinical computing environment documenting the pain points for clinical users and the decision making process, as well as reviewing CPOE, care plans, and physician documentation;
- Reviewing IS Service Level Agreements (SLAs);
- Conducting a pharmacy audit which included a review of the issues list, pharmacy charging process, pricing schedules, formulary, and billing, as well as an audit of CDM, Jcode, and QCF;
- Reviewing the IT governance and decision-making model; and
- Conducting a comparison of Meaningful Use requirements to current practices.
As a result of the assessment and recommendations, East Jefferson extended the engagement with Aspen to identify, analyze, and recommend IT sourcing direction for the hospital. Due diligence was performed to identify the financial and personnel impact of changing from the existing IT outsource firm. Aspen developed financial models with conservative assumptions for future service operations. Furthermore, Aspen led the negotiations with the existing IT outsource vendor and several other IT outsourcers to help East Jefferson receive optimal pricing and contractual terms.
THE RESULTS
As a result of the engagement, East Jefferson General Hospital signed a 10 year contract with a health information technology vendor to remote host the data center, manage the IT function, and provide the software and expertise to execute the strategic plan, replacing the previous outsourcing organization. The total cost of ownership model of the recommended change in IT direction projected $25 million in savings over 10 years. Additionally, the vendor contract included assurances that the software would meet Meaningful Use Stage 1 requirements. During the contracting process, Aspen Advisors identified opportunities and negotiated on behalf of East Jefferson to achieve an additional $18 million in savings. The results of the engagement also included a multi-year technology roadmap; 12, 18, and 24 month clinical implementation plans; and the implementation of “quick win” initiatives for the technical environment, a unified communications strategy, clinician mobility, and data reporting environment.
