While the newly merged Providence St. Joseph Health grabbed headlines this week by announcing a $100 million commitment to mental health, the massive organization also wants to be known for advancements in technology and patient safety.
“We want to set higher quality and safety standards for the whole system,” said President and CEO Dr. Rod Hochman.
Hochman, who led Renton, Washington-based Providence Health & Services prior to the merger, said that Providence already had been working to standardize best practices in neurosciences, orthopedics, digestive diseases, cardiology and other medical specialties. Similar work had been underway at merger partner St. Joseph Health System, which was based in Irvine, California.
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Notably, Providence, the larger of the two merged health systems, has been busy augmenting its executive team in the run-up to the combination. In March, Providence brought in Dr. Lee Hood, president of the Institute for Systems Biology, to be chief science officer.
A priority for Hood will be to speed transition of new scientific advances from development to patient care. “He hopes to bring his technology and science to the bedside,” Hochman said.
At the beginning of 2016, Providence hired CTO David Endicott away from United Airlines. He will, in part, be in charge of making sure data flows between disparate systems. Providence hospitals and clinics have Epic Systems electronic health records, while St. Joseph facilities mostly use Meditech, according to Hochman.
The CEO believes that the new Providence St. Joseph Health should not have too many headaches on the IT front, since interfaces and interoperability engines have been built. Before the merger, Providence provisioned Epic to more than four dozen other hospitals in its service areas, according to Hochman. “We’ve spent a lot of time with data managers,” he said.
IT will, of course, help spread best practices across the 50 Providence St. Joseph hospitals and 829 clinics as the new health system embraces accountable care. “That’s one of those things you can leverage at scale,” Hochman said.
There also is leadership in place in this area. A single executive, Dr. Rhonda Medows, oversaw Providence Health Plan, Providence’s Accountable Care Organizations, payer contracting, physician services and the Pacific Medical Group patient-centered medical home. Medows, a former CMO of insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, is moving over to the merged organization, Hochman said.
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