Transcript

Back in 2002, we started with a full information technology outsource.  This is on the cusp of their very large Cerner Millennium ®  conversion, a very large clinical and financial, frankly, system implementation.

And at that time the goal was to achieve the implementation of this integrated clinical system and to get to a point where they had a completely electronic medical record.

Physicians struggle sometimes with the discrepancy between what’s best for their patients, from an information perspective, and what the hospital says is best from an informatics perspective.  Working as a part of the team that helps transform our previous paper-based systems with a more electronic system is a big deal.

When we arrived here we had the Grand Canyon that had no network, we had the Indian reservations with no network, and we had to communicate out to all these areas throughout Northern Arizona.

One of the examples of what we built was Guardian Air and Guardian Ground, which is the ambulance service, the helicopter and fixed-wing service, that provides emergency transportation for patients who are injured at the Grand Canyon, and in remote areas in Northern Arizona.

And through a lot of trial-and-error we were able to find the partners in the telecommunication industry, as well as working with our systems partners, to build out that network.

In 2004, we increased our relationship to include revenue cycle pieces of the business office and patient access or admissions. 

We’ve taken a patient accounting system and we’ve made it perform very effectively for our revenue cycle people.

The hospital lives and dies on how much cash comes in the door.  With increasing pressures from government payers, commercial payers, and frankly self-pay, it’s incredibly important to bring cash in the door.  We’ve done that.  We’ve increased cash collections every single year.

In 2006, we added the Health Information Management piece, or HIM piece, to fully complement the whole revenue cycle.

Working with the leaders from Perot Systems we replaced some leadership and changed some processes in that department to really improve the medical staff satisfaction and produce good results.

On the compliance front, we’ve improved the release of information in HIM. We’ve improved the analysis of medical records as well as the assembly of medical records, tightening up all of the key aspects in HIM.

One of the advantages that Perot Systems brings is the advantage of a broad scope of experience beyond us here.

Without question they’ve been very skilled, caring and committed healthcare professionals, who happen to have as their primary skill, IT, but I think they really have a lot in common with all of our caregivers, doctors and nurses.

Now we have a full ITO, including infrastructure, applications and support, as well as a full RCO, including the business office, patient access and HIM.  That combination has had a synergistic effect that has improved not only the delivery of our clinical systems, but also our financial results.

We have a nice collaborative relationship with the Perot Systems people that are here.  We work hard to try to make a common goal, one that is best for those we serve, our patients, our community at large and our physicians.