Well-meaning Efforts

Kim Sharkey
CNO, Saint Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta

We have been spending the past two years on some issues with financial decline due to changing patient patterns of admissions and referrals. We had been focusing our attention on forming a strategic alliance with another healthcare system in Atlanta. We had several hospitals and health systems we were looking at.

During that time, we did not have the financial reserves to invest in our technology infrastructure. I would imagine that this is not unique to anyone. Now we are finding as we have to meet the deadlines for ICD-10 compliance and meaningful use, at least at stage 1, we are having to very frantically with our new partner come up with the money and the resources to completely overhaul our clinical IT structure by this fall, with everything done by 2015.

The biggest challenge is, where are you going to find the financial resources? Then, once you get that, where do you get the human resources to integrate something as quickly as we are having to with the deadlines coming up?