Situation
St. Charles Medical Center in Bend is the regional referral center for more than 230,000 people in a 32,000-square-mile area of central and eastern Oregon, providing services usually found only in larger urban areas. SCMC is the hub for the development of a RHIO that is now CHC (Cascade Healthcare Community).
While SCMC is particularly strong in clinical operations, they needed assistance on the financial and revenue cycle side. Recognizing the need for a third party vendor, they selected and implemented an HIS solution with the goal of integrating their own internal operations and supporting the existing network of hospital and healthcare services encompassing mid and eastern Oregon. Challenges arose when that HIS solution did not have the performance capability to adequately integrate the various operations and services. In addition, it was expensive.
Solution
Analytics centered on determining the exact nature and scope of costs being incurred with the current vendor. The CS Partners team then modeled the long term costs and benefits of either continuing with the current vendor or implementing various other solutions available in the market.
On the strength of the financial and revenue modeling and because CS Partners had taken the necessary time to methodically and accurately communicate the results to the various stakeholders, CHC was able to make the bold decision to change its course, and adopt a solution that not only will save them millions of dollars, but will enable them to meet their primary vision of adequately serving their regional constituency.
Cascade Healthcare Community Case Study
How does an organization implement significant change in direction once a particular path has already been chosen? This is exactly what the Cascade Healthcare Community (CHC) has done, but it would have not been possible without the analysis, guidance and leadership of CS Partners.
CS Partners was initially invited by the St. Charles Medical Center CIO to describe the work they had done with Medicine Bow Technologies in Wyoming. She then describes the nature and scope of the vision that SCMC had for the region and asked CS Partners to assist her in planning and implementing a RHIO that would be able to service mid and eastern Oregon.
CS Partners began by analyzing the exact cost and capability of the HIS system that had been previously selected and installed. Not only was it expensive for the size of the hospital, but it was also failing to be the integrated solution that had been promised and it would not be capable of adequately centralizing operations and services for the RHIO; Cascade Healthcare Community.
After detailed financial and revenue modeling performance analysis, CS Partners began the process of validating their conclusions with every stakeholder group and individual that would be impacted. They were able to clearly show and communicate that changing to an alternative solution among those currently available would save CHC 30 million dollars over 7 years, with the added benefit of the region being properly networked and integrated in accordance with their vision. The board overwhelmingly approved this radical mid-stream change to a new path with a new HIS solution and vendor.
CS Partners then led the CHC leadership through a "fast track" process to select the new vendor and solution. Using their unique tools the team was able to enhance the efficiency and speed of the search and selection to less than ninety days, rather than the 6-12 months it would usually take. This included Total Cost of Ownership and Return on Investment modeling on two finalists as well as the current vendor so that accurate comparison and contrasting could be made. This led to a decision that was both credible and supportable.
The Board made their selection and CS Partners then led the contracting process. The CS Partners team is now supporting and guiding CHC through the implementation and provisioning of that solution.