CEO Update: Celebrating Health Information Technology

It’s interesting to me how far we have come with information technology and I realize it is often a love/hate relationship.  I love it when I get a new phone, but I hate paying the huge price tag!  You need technology, yet it’s expensive to pay for and sometimes takes us longer than using paper.

Many of our rural facilities are experiencing struggles with data mining, getting reports out of the system, paying to connect to the health information exchange, paying for upgrades to electronic medical records and other costs of interfacing, dealing with the increase in cyber-attacks and data breaches, and broadband access and telehealth.

Yet despite the challenges, we have health information leaders in rural throughout Colorado.  One great example is the IT team at Mt. San Rafael Hospital led by their CIO, Michael Archuleta. Mt. San Rafael has been named for the past four years by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) Healthcare’s Most Wired Hospital.  This accomplishment is huge regardless of hospital size.

As a state we can do more to help ensure that our rural communities are supported with technology.  One key way the state is working on these efforts is through the Office of eHealth Innovation, the e Health Commission and the HIT Roadmap.  The HIT Roadmap, developed in late 2017 with over 1,000 engaged stakeholders from Colorado’s healthcare community, has 16 initiatives and many of these initiatives address the struggles rural and urban facilities are facing.

How is CRHC helping rural communities with IT?  I Chair the eHealth Commission to represent the rural voice and I encourage you to apply to also represent the rural voice.  In 2018, CRHC provided 625 hours of direct IT support across rural Colorado and provided data services such as, workflow mapping, data assessment, data coaching and report writing.  Additionally, CRHC has several IT solutions to save rural facilities money. Services include network security, business intelligence, data analytics, electronic medical record evaluation and selection, HIPAA Risk Assessment, IT Policies, onsite or remote IT support, managed IT services, meaningful use support and education.  To learn more please visit our website.

So, happy National Health Information Technology Week and we hope to see you at our Annual Conference, October 24-25!