ALLIANCE — The construction of the physical plant of Box Butte General Hospital’s (BBGH) new addition has been obvious for over two years now. What hasn’t been as obvious is the latest in Information Technology that’s being integrated with the new building as well as the old. BBGH IT Manager Mandy Greve was present at the BBGH Trustees meeting Monday night, Sept. 28, to give an overview of what her department and the vendors are working with have been doing to bring that technology to BBGH staff, medical providers and the patients they care for.
“Obviously our IT budget this past year was quite large for all the changes we’ve made to bring the latest in IT to our hospital,” she said.
She focused on nine areas where IT changes have or will be occurring:
VSphere Servers utilizing VMware: VMware is a virtualization software provider, which will allow the IT Department to build servers in a virtual world without having to buy more hardware. “Our old hardware and its layout had 4 IBM Blade servers, each of which maxed out at 64GB of RAM and only 24 Virtual CPUs (processors),” she said. “The three new Lenova Servers have 256GB of RAM per server (which can still expand in the future) and 40 CPUs per server. That’s a huge increase.”
VDI/VMHorizon: VDI is short for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, also known and VMware Horizon or View. This will give IT the ability to deliver desktops, applications and data to a variety of endpoint devices, all done using a Central Management Tool. “It will provide remote connection to desktops and applications from anywhere, providing faster and more reliable connections using two dedicated servers,” Greve said. “That means no more shared resources between users; no more shared SAN (Storage Area Network) resources between servers and end user computers. What’s really nice is it can virtualize applications/software. Once a virtual app is created, if a user needs it all we have to do is push it to that user. No more manual installs will be needed.” The multiple devices able to connect to VMHorizon include tablets, computers, thin clients, IPad and smart phones.
Zero Clients: Zero Clients is a server-based computer model where the end user’s computing device has no local storage. Zero Clients allows driver pass-through for scanners, signature pads and RFID Readers. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the wireless use of electromagnetic fields to transfer data, for the purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects. Zero Clients will utilize three types of end-user “stations”: HP t310Ai0, HP t310 and HP ElitePad 100. The former two utilize an all in one 23-inch monitor with dual monitor capability and a single sign-on built in (just a tap of an ID card does the trick utilizing Imprivata security). The ElitePad is a pad similar to iPad, only it’s medical grade quality, meaning it can be used for medical purposes. It includes a camera, barcode scanner and docking station.
Cortext: This is a secure communications platform powered by Imprivata for health care which improves care coordination inside and outside the hospital. “No data resides on phones or computers when this is used,” she explained, “which will reduce the possibility of HIPAA violations and help with patient privacy concerns. …”
Mitel Phone System: The Mitel phone system will replace the current ESI system. “What’s nice about this is that it’s a virtualized system, eliminating any server hardware,” Greve said. “That will reduce costs and points of failures. It has a backup system, and analog lines will be independent so that for any reason we had a network failure the analog lines will still be usable.” She added it can be used on computers, tablets, iPads and cell phones for internal and external use.
Smart Phones: “With that we are implementing smart phone technology, issuing smart phones to medical staff. This will replace our unit paging system,” Greve said. The phone communicates with the responder 5 Nurse Call System. “I’m also working with Imprivata to develop a program to use the Smart Phone for Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA),” Greve continued. BCMA is a barcode system designed to prevent medication errors in healthcare settings. “That way a nurse can scan the patient’s wrist band using his or her Smart Phone.” Imprivata is developing the system as she spoke, and was conducting marketing research to see if other facilities would be interested.
Switch/Network upgrade: The upgrade has improved end user connections from 10/100 MBPS to 1GB. The system’s backbone has gone from 1GB to 10GB. IT replaced HP 1GB switches with Cisco switches and Closets went from sharing 1GB connections to 40GB.
Wireless Network: She reported that a vendor has completed a wireless survey of the hospital and the new addition. The new wireless network will have many uses for SIP phones, mobile clients, public wireless and smart TV’s. The survey was conducted to make sure all areas of the hospital will be covered by the network.
Smart TVs: Smart TVs will allow integration of healthcare education with patients, along with the usual offering of channels. BBGH will develop its own best practices for the education opportunities the TVs will provide. They will also allow patients to get on their Facebook pages, surf the Internet, etc.
The board praised the IT department for its efforts.
The Trustees also conducted the following business.
CEO Dan Griess, FACHE, introduced Jan Loomis, RN, recognizing her as the September Employee of the Month. He also recognized new Human Resources Manager Lisa Hillyer. Also introduced to the board were new employees: Ana Mendiola, Environmental Services; Paige Johnson, nurse aide/ward clerk; Mackenzie Walker, RN; Norman Benjamin, cook; Samantha Jackson, admissions clerk; and Nikki McCune, registration clerk/cashier.
After unanimously approving the consent calendar, Chief Quality Officer Mary Mockerman presented the monthly Quality Management and Safety Report. The Nebraska Coalition for Patient Safety — Safety Matters topic for the month was a case of two patients at another facility’s Emergency Department not receiving proper medication due to miscommunication, lack of RN experience, sound alike drugs, drug protocol confusion, and medication available in multiple concentrations. Mockerman said protocols, if followed, help deter such instances. “We’re also blessed with our ED RNs having a wealth of experience in our ED protocols and procedures,” she said. She also discussed infection control and employee health, noting that a recent flu shot drive resulted in only 13 employees not yet receiving immunizations out of over 270 employees. She gave credit to all the people involved in the employee flu shot clinics. She said a recent GNMSS Family Medicine flu shot clinic for the public was also a success. Statewide monitoring of flu outbreaks will start Oct. 1. A visit by the hospital’s medical liability carrier, COPIC, helped staff become educated on treatment, payment, operations and HIPAA; social media do’s and don’ts; risk of identity theft for patients and staff; IT risks (e.g. phishing, crypto locker, photographs; as well as other issues.
Chief of Staff Timothy Narjes, MD, was present but informed the board he had no items to discuss this month. Also, no financial report was given due to the on-going audit. The Trustees will receive a report on the audit at their October meeting from Dohman, Akerland and Eddy (DA&E) auditor Kurt Moral.
Griess updated the Trustees on new addition progress. He said concrete is being poured for the new parking lot where Suite 2107 used to be. Suite 2107 was demolished to make room for the Emergency Department ambulance bay. “They were going to do the bay first then the concrete, but decided to finish the parking lot to help mitigate dirt and dust,” he said. “That put us back a week, but we’re still on track to finish by the end of the year.” He said elevator inspections were occurring Monday and Tuesday. Painting of parking stripes also began on Monday.
Griess reminded the board about the Sept. 30 Grand Opening and Open House, going over the grand opening program and how the self-tour open house would be conducted. He also urged the board to take part in the Auxiliary Home Tour Sunday, Oct. 4, with five houses now on the tour (another home was recently added).
After the board unanimously approved all credentialing requests, the Trustees adjourned at 7:56 p.m. The next meeting will be 12 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26. The noon meeting was scheduled to allow the DA&E audit representative time to give his presentation and return home. As usual, the public is welcome to attend.
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