JJWild held its fifth annual Healthcare Optimization Workshop (HOW '07) at the Hilton in Dedham, Massachusetts on June 20, the day before MEDITECH's CIO Technology Workshop.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with HOW, we designed this all-day event as a forum to discuss significant strategic issues facing healthcare leaders, providing educational workshops and opportunities for networking. Our goal in hosting HOW is to encourage dialog about these important topics and to let you know we're here to help you deal with them.

We were very pleased to welcome over 110 leaders from healthcare facilities across North America as well as Ireland. Attendees included CIOs, VPs, IT Directors, CMOs, and CFOs from over 75 different healthcare organizations in every region of the United States and the five Canadian provinces. We were also happy to have many friends join us from MEDITECH. Additionally, our partners including BridgeHead, Dell, EMC, FormFast, Forward Advantage, HP, IBM, Motorola, and Stratus participated in the event and were available throughout the day to talk with the guests about their individual situations.

Opening remarks from our CEO, Sal Lanuto, established the theme for this year's event, "A Quest for Quality," and offered a look at the current environment and the challenges faced in the industry today.

Dr. John B. Chessare, MD, MPH, Interim President and CEO of Caritas Christi Health Care System, gave the introductory talk for the first session, which was followed by panel participation and a Q&A session with the attendees. Dr. Chessare gave us valuable insight based on his own experiences as he tackled some of the most critical obstacles in his own professional "Quest for Quality". Key take-aways include

• Utilizing technology as an accelerator for improving quality
• Emphasizing the importance of process redesign
• Increasing the reliability of systems and workflow

The panel members offered supporting commentary and viewpoints that further identified impacts on quality in healthcare. The panel included: A.G. Breitenstein, JD, MPH, Executive Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer, Institute for Health Metrics; Ed Fisher, Vice President and CIO of Norman Regional Healthcare; Janet Desroche, Advanced Clinical Implementation Director for MEDITECH; and Lynn Bowen, RN, Director of Consulting at JJWild.

Contributions from the audience alternated between sharing of previous experiences to requesting advice on how to achieve success. One of the primary themes supported by the majority of attendees was the critical need for executive/board level support for achieving their "Quality" initiatives. The session's feedback and commentary on the status of quality were well-received by the attendees and set the stage for the remainder of the day.

Following the opening session, our guests were able to customize their agendas by choosing from a variety of workshops on the following topics:

• Track 1.1: Best Practices for the New Healthcare Data Center: A Model
• Track 2.1: "Turbo Charge" Your MEDITECH Advanced Clinicals with Evidence-Based Clinical Decision Support
• Track 1.2: Preparing for Success with Scanning and Archiving as Part of Your Information Lifecycle Management Strategy
• Track 2.2: Making a Balanced Institutional Decision When Evaluating Clinical Applications

Between sessions, attendees found ample opportunity for networking with colleagues and with our partners.

Nancy Gagliano, MD, Vice President of Practice Improvement, Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, delivered a keynote talk during the lunch break on "The Challenges of Implementing an Electronic Medical Record and the Importance of Physician Adoption." Complementing the opening session, Dr. Gagliano shared her experiences and offered some valuable suggestions on one of the most difficult challenges inhibiting the uptake of the Advanced Clinical Systems--physician adoption.

As has become a recent tradition at HOW, we ended the day in a light yet fact-filled way by providing the HOW Update Reality TV Edition. In this session, two (fictitious) teams of senior hospital executives using MEDITECH competed in a quest for healthcare quality by participating in a variety of "reality" TV shows including The Amazing Race, Survivor, and The Apprentice. Both teams had to learn to streamline workflows, improve efficiencies, incorporate clinical data, and save patient lives. Aside from a few minor wardrobe malfunctions, the session was both amusing and informative.

Following a full day of presentations and workshops, HOW '07 concluded with a cocktail reception where everyone was able to unwind and enjoy time with friends, both new and old. And many lucky attendees won gifts generously donated by several of our business partners.

If you have any questions or comments regarding HOW, please feel free to email us at HOWevent@jjwild.com.

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