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Every day, physicians and other frontline workers work to heal men and women, and adults and children. Behind the scenes, though, they’re assisted by a cadre of other professionals who rarely get mentioned: information technology specialists. They often labor in the background, but each year, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) shines the spotlight on them with a report on the nation’s “Most Wired” hospitals.

The recognition is based on “the adoption, implementation, and use of information technology by health care provider organizations.” To find out what they’re doing right, NJBIZ spoke with some Garden State institutions that made the list for 2020.

The RWJBarnabas Health network uses an “integrated” approach with medical and IT professionals, according to Chief Information Officer Robert G. Irwin. “Physicians and nurses are an integral part of our design,” he said. “This way, the clinicians who practice medicine are in front of the process, which ensures that the IT systems address the issues that practicing physicians, nurses and others deal with every day. The technological professionals provide valuable structural and design support, but they’re not leading the way on the effort. This may mean that it takes a little longer to design and deploy a system, but it’s worth the wait for a better product.”

One current initiative is RWJBH’s enterprise-wide move to the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) software system. “We’ve had a series of mergers, which meant that RWJBarnabas Health has had to maintain our own EMR system while integrating and supporting our partners’ legacy systems,” Irwin said.

It’s a big network that currently consists of 11 hospitals, three acute care children’s hospitals, children’s rehab and behavioral health hospitals, specialty centers, and a host of other outpatient centers, imaging and other locations across New Jersey. RWJBH itself was created in a 2016 merger between Barnabas Health and Robert Wood Johnson Health System — and has completed in a series of deals since then. The most recent is a planned integration with New Brunswick’s Saint Peter’s Healthcare System that was announced Sept. 10.

“We already moved over half of our staff to EPIC,” Irwin said. “We can connect with our partners’ legacy systems like Centricity, Allscripts and other EMRs, but it entails a lot of extra work. Standardizing the systems makes the task a lot more efficient and portable. When all of the physicians and other clinicians are on a standard IT system it’s easier to monitor the success of medical protocols and report back to clinical leaders. Also, no matter where you’re treated in the system, the data is instantly and fully available.”

A cue from Amazon

Irwin also identified some emerging IT health care trends, like telemedicine. “We were already preparing for telemedicine, but COVID-19 and the resulting social-distancing requirements delivered a turbocharged boost to those efforts,” he explained. “There’s been a significant increase in remote patient visits, and that’s likely to continue even after the pandemic is contained. Basically, medical providers are catching up to Amazon and other online retailers that are already providing online convenience to their consumer segments.”

Internally, he added, “our IT staff quickly became accustomed to Zoom [videoconference] calls. Since the beginning of the pandemic earlier this year, some 300 [members] of RWJBH’s IT staff have gone fully remote, while the entire RWJBarnabas Health system went from about 1,000 remote workers to about 4,000 — mainly administrative — in a matter of weeks. Our IT staff started out with traditional conference calls, but we found there was a ‘personal’ element missing. With videoconferencing it’s easier to share visual and other data. Being able to see your colleagues as well as talk to them makes a positive difference.”

The future of health care is “technology-enabled and data-driven, where patients remain at the center of our focus and have personalized options at the times and locations convenient to them,” according to Atlantic Health System Vice President, Chief Information Officer Sunil Dadlani. “Atlantic Health System’s commitment to that reality is seen in the pursuit of new, on-demand scheduling capabilities with customized questions to connect patients with the most appropriate appointments.”

AHS has also invested in data analytics, he added. “Along with making care more accessible and affordable, investments in cloud-based ‘big data’ platforms and data science capabilities are further utilized to forecast epidemic spread, case load and optimizing operational efficiencies.”

He also highlighted conveniences like “on-demand appointment scheduling,” and AHS’ use of health care software company Epic’s electronic medical record and other products to deliver quality health care even more efficiently. He said, for example, that integrating the New Jersey Prescription Monitoring Program “directly into Epic will allow caregivers to have real-time access to data that will help them identify patients with substance abuse issues, allowing for early intervention. Also, during the spring, when COVID-19 cases were surging across New Jersey, Atlantic Health System physicians and team members fully embraced telehealth to the tune of more than 50,000 telehealth visits — including phone, video, and asynchronous [where data is captured locally then later forwarded to a provider for review and recommendation] — per month across the system.”

Other health care systems also get it. At Hackensack Meridian Health, “We already have a large Epic shop, and we’re continuing to expand it across our network,” according to Mark Eimer, HMH’s interim co-chief information officer and senior vice president, chief technology officer. “We’re also continuing to enhance the Epic My Chart patient portal for telehealth visits and for scheduling appointments.”

Offering a connected network across a multi-hospital system means that “patients can see a primary care physician in one location and a specialty care professional in another, while all the hospitals and our partners can securely access current data.,” he added. “This was a lifesaver during the COVID-19 surge, when some patients had to be transferred between facilities so we could level the bed counts.”

These and other med-tech advances are all part of a “patient-centered approach that aims for anytime, anywhere delivery,” Eimer said. “The goal is to deliver secure, encrypted virtual clinical services.”

In addition to remotely monitoring the health of recently released patients, he pointed to “wearable and other [smart] devices that, for example, enable diabetic patients to upload their glucose readings, while medical providers can monitor a patient’s weight on a daily basis.”

At the same time, he cautioned, “we have to make sure the devices are easy to use for patients and physicians — whether the end users are here, at home or in another location.”

Team effort

When Virtua Health began tying its IT platforms together about four years ago, executives at the South Jersey-based health care provider with five hospitals, seven emergency departments, eight urgent care centers, and more than 280 other locations knew the initiative had to be a team effort, according to Senior Vice-President and Chief Information Officer Tom Gordon. “We’ve been able to do this thanks to a true partnership with our clinical and operational colleagues,” he said. “The idea is to maximize technology to support patients.”

The multiyear initiative, which includes updating Virtua’s electronic medical records, revenue management and other platforms under the Epic umbrella system, “is helping us to quickly find and integrate data across all activity, including Virtua physician practices and hospitals,” he added. “This integration stretches across patient and business systems, computers, monitors, phone systems and other equipment involving all five hospital campuses and more than 1,000 physicians.”

The ongoing digital integration initiative encompasses unified patient scheduling and telemedicine systems — both of which are largely complete. The next step, according to Gordon, will involve integrating patient medical “wearables” — like blood pressure cuffs, Fitbits, Apple watches and scales — on a unified platform “to achieve seamless data sharing no matter the patient setting,” where medical professionals can get a steady stream of securely transmitted patient data on a remote basis. “The technology is here, and now we’re focusing on optimizing the workflow and ensuring the security layers,” Gordon said.

Accomplishing all of this in an efficient, secure way means letting the doctors and other clinical professionals take the lead, he added. “Virtua Health IT professionals know how to connect the dots, but the clinicians know what kinds of data need to flow. It’s not just about the technology — instead, it’s about the partnership.”