BayCare Health Network: Enabling Enterprise-wide Business and Clinical Process Improvement

Client Challenge

BayCare Health Network is an emerging health care delivery system in the rapid growth Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater market. BayCare is comprised of urban and rural hospitals, medical centers, home health agencies, rehabilitative services, physician organizations and managed care/health plan organizations. Cornerstone facilities include Bayfront Medical Center, St. Anthony's Hospital, Morton Plant Mease Health System, St. Joseph's-Baptist Health Care (including a woman's hospital and Tampa Children's Hospital).

BayCare, as an embryonic and developing delivery system is also in the early stages of physician network formation through BayCare Physician partners.

As a newly-formed health system bringing together a number of formerly independent hospitals and hospital groups, BayCare faced a daunting information system challenge. The BayCare goal was to develop a strategic plan for information technology that would 1) unify and strengthen the emerging health care system, 2) support enterprise-wide business and clinical process improvements, and 3) incorporate emerging physician network requirements. BayCare wanted an information system that would enhance its ability to:

• Compete for and win managed care contracts (data management, quality and costing information)

• Actively support the information needs of physicians for optimal integration within the network and

• Provide higher service levels supporting the continuum of care, not just in-patient services

• Significantly reduce operating costs

Solution Provided by IT Optimizers

BayCare management engaged IT Optimizers to develop a near-term and long-term information technology plan. The resulting plan provided the direction, over time to bring the disparate organization units together into a single, effective information technology enterprise. The IT plan detailed specific actions needed and described the costs and benefits associated with the recommended initiatives. BayCare has endorsed and funded the plan, including strategies and solutions to address physician information needs. To arrive at the solution, IT Optimizers provided the following services:

• Drove the entire planning process for defining organizational goals and objectives and aligning these with appropriate systems initiatives

• Reviewed existing (mostly operational) systems and technology, working closely with multiple layers of management to gain agreement on initiatives, priorities, timing and scope

• Facilitated the cultural shift of transforming from multiple organizations centered around hospitals to a unified enterprise focused on providing the appropriate services along the continuum of care

• Detailed systems alternatives and implications for the emerging health system as it shifted its focus from operational hospital units to a managed care network model

• Developed detailed action plans with application recommendations, costs, schedules, and organizational implications

• Addressed the entire spectrum of information technology needs in the context of the plan—from relatively low level platform standardization of e-mail to high level decision support and managed care systems

• Conducted physician-led focus groups with a broad constituency of physicians resulting in a specific plan and funding requirements for serving their information needs

"They (IT Optimizers) listened to us and listened to what our needs were before formulating ideas and I found that very refreshing. I'd say that's probably the thing that I liked most, the openness and freedom of information exchange."

—Rick Perry, Regional Director / CIO, BayCare

Benefits

The plan developed by IT Optimizers details the technology investments, timing and initiatives for enterprise-wide business and clinical improvements. BayCare benefits from:

• A detailed plan based on careful listening, that is specific enough to implement, yet far-reaching in vision to enable significant competitive marketplace improvements

• Through the process, recommendation and findings, IT Optimizers helped to unify the disparate organization units and management team, thereby advancing the objective to come together as a single organization, tactfully raising key issues and stimulating a shift from operational to strategic objectives, from hospital-centric concerns to an emphasis on the enterprise as a whole, with a shifting focus on out-patient, physician integration and continuum of care needs

• Corporate-level information needs were addressed while also incorporating the needs of individual operating units for more timely, accurate data for business decisions

• A sustainable and unique information technology review and approval methodology was developed to assure ongoing, and consistent, management focus

• The physician constituency of BayCare Physician Partners benefit from having a business partner who knows their information needs and has approved the plan to address them

BayCare's plan took their unique needs into account, reflecting the need to use information technology to help bring the emerging organization together.

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