Cisco Growing with Technology Awards

Operational Excellence

Grand Prize Winner

By Howard Baldwin
Photograph by Eric Millette

	BUSINESS FOCUS: Regional healthcare
	IN BRIEF: An integrated electronic medical records system saved the clinic more than $1 million in the first year of implementation by eliminating dictation costs, storage space, and paper-based charts.
	LOCATION: Provo, Utah
	EMPLOYEES: 500
	EXECUTIVE SPONSOR: Jamie R. Steck, Director of IT
	CISCO PRODUCTS: Cisco Catalyst switches, Cisco routers, Cisco PIX Series Firewall, Cisco IP Communications solutions, and Cisco Aironet wireless equipment

He started out as an accountant and only got into IT because computers were his hobby, but Jamie Steck is taking the Central Utah Clinic into territories uncharted for the medical profession.

Central Utah Clinic already serves a wide geographical territory: Based in Provo, it has nine locations in Utah County and eight outlying clinics in rural communities outside the county. The clinic draws patients from as far as eastern Nevada, western Colorado, and northern Arizona. Handling this from the IT perspective requires everything from wireless to local- to wide-area networking capabilities. A cardiology lab ten miles from the central clinic is connected by a redundant fiber-optic link, as are several other locations.

"Some physicians carry tablet PCs or PDAs with wireless access, and we have computers in every room so physicians can access our electronic medical records [EMR] system," says Steck. "We have lots of servers for load-sharing and have set up alternative network routes for backup and redundancy."

The network also serves Central Utah Clinic's operational needs. Its technological transformation began when the clinic decided it needed to decrease the time it took to serve patients. In the last three years, it has deployed new EMR and patient-management systems. Both provided impressive payback within a short period of time.

The patient management system has allowed the clinic to start tracking key metrics, such as how long it takes to schedule patients for certain tests or the time it takes to get results from other facilities. One glaring revelation: It took up to three weeks to schedule x-rays in the Provo valley until Central Utah Clinic opened its own imaging center.

"We can schedule people sooner and, with the technology, get the results to them sooner as well," says Steck. "In some cases we've called the patients with results before they got home," allowing them to address any problems more promptly.

Converting medical records from a paper-based system to an electronic one delivered an even more significant impact. "Each satellite office had its own chart system," explains Steck. "A patient could have five or six charts, depending on where he or she had been seen."

Installing an EMR system has helped in the clinic and its doctors in a variety of ways, including the following:

	Because doctors now enter notes about a patient visit while in the examination room, the clinic has cut dictation costs by $400,000 in the first year.
	The EMR system has eliminated the time lag between when information is entered in the system and when it is accessible to other departments.
	Space in a new building that was previously allocated for chart storage at a cost of $250,000 will be reconfigured for exam rooms.
	Between time, labor, and materials, Steck calculates that the paper-based charts cost $8 each. With 22,000 new patients each year, the EMR system allows approximately $176,000 in annual savings.
	Even more importantly, Steck estimates that because the electronic charts are more accurate, the clinic derived almost $1.7 million in increased revenue by avoiding incorrect coding of insurance procedures.

The clinic is also thinking big by combining its operational and technological strengths. Because it already serves a wide geographical area, Steck sees an opportunity to use the network as a foundation to serve others in the community—while also helping to underwrite its cost by reselling services.

With only 500 employees, the clinic qualifies as a small business, but "we're a big clinic," says Steck. "We have a lot of capital resources, so we'd like to help the individual providers or three-doctor groups who can't afford these capabilities."

Basically, Central Utah Clinic plans to become the medical equivalent of an application service provider, allowing regional practitioners to use the EMR and patient-management systems, as well as access network support and service.

"This would be a great opportunity to try to get this technology to those little groups that can't afford it," says Steck. "There are 73 doctors at this clinic, and more than 93 others are knocking on our door to sign up. There's that much need for what we're doing."

Even if he did start in accounting, you couldn't get Steck out of IT now. "It makes me feel good to see us making a difference because of the technology we've implemented."

iQ Magazine, First Quarter 2005

About the Author
Freelance writer Howard Baldwin never fails to be amazed by the creativity of small business owners when it comes to capitalizing on technology. He only wishes his fiction writing could be as creative.

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