SmartSense CIO Roundtable: Maintaining an Entrepreneurial Spirit Post-Crisis

The first CIO roundtable that SmartSense hosted this past winter was such a success that we decided to start holding them on a regular basis. Our second one took place on May 18. It was an amazing time with New England-area healthcare technology professionals.

Thank you to the following participants: Elizabeth Downie , Chief Information Officer at Mass General Brigham Newton Wellesley Hospital; Arthur Harvey , Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer at Boston Medical Center; Mary Kate McCann , Manager of Ambulatory Pharmacy Services, Signature Healthcare; Meg Clapp , Enterprise Director of Pharmacy; Signature Healthcare. Roxanne Worob , Chief Information Officer at Mass General Brigham - Salem Hospital

Patient Care

During this roundtable, the conversation centered around Signature Healthcare’s fire recovery efforts . Thankfully, the fire incident did not directly injure anyone or damage large portions of the building. However, it did cause a massive power outage. And unfortunately, the recovery power cables were only one room over from where the fire started, eliminating backup capabilities.

Without power, Signature Healthcare could not take care of its patients, requiring them to move them to other healthcare facilities in the Massachusetts area. With patient care being the top priority for hospitals, our conversation at the roundtable focused on maintaining patient care and combatting the bullwhip effect during crisis situations. To successfully transfer their patients elsewhere, Signature Healthcare needed to regain connectivity quickly. Their Wi-Fi had gone down during the fire. The staff acted quickly and re-secured connectivity by going to the T-Mobile store close by and purchasing 150 PUKs. Acting quickly allowed them to communicate with other healthcare providers and ensure that all patients were transferred so they could continue to receive care.

Data Transfer

Moving patients between hospitals requires sharing of medical data between care providers. In our first CIO Roundtable, we spoke about the difficulties surrounding this process during normal times. In a crisis, when speed is prioritized over all else, the medical data transfer process is put under even more pressure, revealing the need for more interoperability and format compatibility protocols to be implemented throughout the field. Patient care is always the priority, so in the case of the fire incident, other hospitals accepted transferring patients even when their documentation wasn’t present. However, eventually medical records are needed to deliver the proper care, ensure the safety of all patients, and determine priority of treatment. The Massachusetts Health Information Highway serves as an application conversion for patient medical records. In the case of the Signature Healthcare fire emergency, the “Mass Highway” saved the day, despite some of its limitations.

Inventory Maintenance

Without sensing capabilities that could capture and store data during a power outage installed, Signature Healthcare ended up having to throw out a lot of medication inventory. Without the knowledge of how temperatures were or were not maintained, the leadership had to assume that the medications and vaccines in their assets were compromised. This crisis has given Signature Healthcare leadership motivation and opportunity to invest in the technology infrastructures necessary to maintain inventories throughout a crisis. Better visibility into asset performance and product condition would have allowed them to prioritize the movement of critical inventories and preserve valuable medications.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

As the conversation wrapped up, it was pointed out that although the fire had caused major disruption, the urgency of the situation created an entrepreneurial spirit within the responding staff members. Everyone became a leader, making decisions in the moment that would lead to the optimal outcome for the patients. The weight of the circumstances combined with the need for quick decision-making inspired a sense of responsibility and responsiveness previously unattained when the day-to-day processes drove action. A correlation between urgency, criticality, and empowerment of front-line workers brought about the necessary action to ensure patient safety during a tumultuous situation.

On the whole, the evening was a great opportunity to examine the outcomes that resulted from the Signature Health fire. Our CIO Roundtables are a place where healthcare IT leaders come together to share ideas, compare notes, and move the field forward with best practices for business-as-usual and anecdotes of exception during times of crisis. Through it all, these CIOs are empowering professional staff and front-line employees with the tools they need to respond with entrepreneurial enthusiasm as they provide excellent medical