Becker's Hospital Review

29 CIO / HEALTH IT Mayo Clinic pulls off 25K-user Epic go-live: 3 questions with the consulting firm that helped them do it By Jessica Kim Cohen O n May 5, Mayo Clinic's main campus in Rochester, Minn., com- pleted one of the nation's largest Epic EHR implementations to date, according to HCI Group — the health IT consulting and technology solutions firm that aided Mayo Clinic in the go-live. "A typical go-live is somewhere between 500 to 4,500 end users at a single time, and a large implementation would bring up 5,000 to 10,000 users at once," Jason Huckabay, executive vice president of op- erational delivery at HCI Group, said during an interview with Becker's Hospital Review. "e Mayo go-live brought 25,000 clinical users live at a single time." To support Mayo Clinic, HCI Group helped the health system plan for the go-live process and provided the campus with more than 1,400 resources, as well as training, activation and command center service desk support. e Epic implementation is part of a multiyear technol- ogy modernization project across Mayo Clinic, which officials esti- mate will total $1.5 billion. Mayo Clinic has also tapped HCI Group to support in upcoming go- lives at the health system's Arizona and Florida campuses, which are slated for fall 2018. Mr. Huckabay spoke with Becker's Hospital Review to discuss how HCI Group helped Mayo Clinic plan for the implementation and how the firm measures success following a go-live. Editor's note: is interview has been edited for length and clarity. Question: How did Mayo Clinic and HCI Group decide to implement the Epic EHR in a single go-live, rather than a gradual rollout? Jason Huckabay: Mayo made the decision to go live in a single im- plementation on their own. It would be close to impossible to segre- gate out any piece of the Rochester campus from the others, as they all work hand-in-hand. Having part of the group live without the rest would have been riddled with challenges and workflow issues. It was a calculated risk to bring everyone up at once, based on the successful first waves that brought up the areas outside of Rochester. It helped to do those multiple smaller efforts and apply those lessons to be sure they could do a final larger push. Q: Some news coverage has focused on temporary em- ployees leaving the Mayo Clinic project, citing misman- aged assignments. How does HCI Group assign and man- age contractors in various roles across the health system? JH: When we come on site, the first thing we do is a needs assessment, and we do our best to match our support staff 's skills with that of the people they will support. While we look at specific departments for their skills, we also look at their clinical background and how their areas use the soware. Some skills are universal and will work for mul- tiple areas. erefore, you might find a nurse from one area supporting nurses from another area because their use of the system is similar. All this to say HCI weighs their background and expertise along with the needs of the client when making staffing assignments. Q: When assessing a completed go-live, what metrics do you use to evaluate its success? JH: e ultimate metric is: Was the client successful? Were they able to use the new system to take care of their patients? e resounding answer for the Mayo project is, 'Yes!' We have other metrics we look at internally, such as was everyone able to complete their assigned shis, did they all start on time, did our transportation schedule meet the work schedule demands, how many 'no shows' did we have and how many bench or backup resources were deployed, along with did we have enough backup resources for any no shows or cancellations? When we look at our data, HCI performed well and the HCI manage- ment and logistics team adapted quickly to changes and were able to provide top quality support to our client. n Walmart patent proposes storing patient records on the blockchain By Julie Spitzer W almart received a patent that describes a sys- tem of storing patient medical records on the blockchain within a wearable device so first responders can access patient data in emergency situa- tions, according to CCN. The patent, titled "Obtaining a Medical Record Stored on a Blockchain from a Wearable Device," describes three core devices starting with a wearable — ideally, a bracelet — that acts as the storage hub for the blockchain data- base, which only holds emergency-specific information to protect privacy. The patent also includes a biometric scanner to capture the patient's biometric signature and a Radio-Frequency Identification scanner for scanning the wearable device. Walmart hopes the system will allow medical providers to access a patient's vital medical records and informa- tion before the patient arrives at a particular facility. Here is how Walmart envisions its patent in action: 1. When a first responder scans a patient's wearable device with the RFID scanner, they would receive an en- crypted private key and the public key associated with that particular patient. 2. To decrypt the private key, the first responder would scan a biometric feature on the patient, such as their face, retina, iris or fingerprint. 3. As soon as the private key is decrypted, the patient's medical records can be viewed on the blockchain. 4. The patent would also enable first responders to share the patient's health information with other healthcare en- tities through the use of internet of things devices. n

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