McKesson — Performance Strategies

Improving the Vital Signs of Your
Healthcare Enterprise

By Pat Blake
Executive Vice President and Group President
McKesson Technology Solutions

Anyone who has spent time in a hospital has had their vital signs checked. As technologically advanced as modern medicine has become, it’s telling that physicians and nurses still rely on the simple routine of monitoring pulse, body temperature, respiratory rate and blood pressure to assess a patient’s condition and determine the urgency of a situation.

Take the Pulse of Your Organization’s Health
I find myself running through a similar checklist when I visit health systems around the country. What’s their financial condition? What level of technology have they adopted and how well are .they using it? How are they doing in terms of improving patient safety and preventing hospital-acquired conditions? How well are they moving patients through the system and achieving quality outcomes?

When a hospital is in good health, its vital signs are inevitably strong; but when a hospital is in trouble, the signs are usually weak across the board — clinically, financially and operationally. Given the enormous challenges facing our industry, health systems must be like marathon runners, always in training, always checking their pulse for ways to improve or maintain their business health so they can consistently deliver better care for their patients.

Leverage People, Process and Technology for Better Health
Today, health organizations can leverage technologies and services to promote better health — in business, in care delivery and in connecting all members of the healthcare delivery network. Technology helps automate processes and drive efficiencies into operations. At the same time, it helps conserve resources, improve turnaround time, provide actionable business intelligence and reduce errors. When a hospital automates the business and operational ends of care, it frees its human resources to provide better care to its customers — the patient and their families.

Deliver on the Three Pillars of Better Health
McKesson’s ultimate goal is better health for all patients. Our approach to reaching that goal is best articulated in our emphasis on three pillars: better business health for the organizations that work in the industry; better connectivity within and between those organizations; and better delivery of the care that millions of patients need every day. Let me describe in more detail how our philosophy and efforts in those areas are benefiting our customers and their patients.

Clinical Transformation for Better Care Delivery — Clearly, the understanding of health and illness has never been greater; our treatments, medicine and technology never more advanced. The challenge today is to deliver that knowledge and care whenever and wherever needed — especially at the point of care. When a care provider sees a patient, the entire infrastructure of healthcare should be at both the provider and patient’s disposal to give them access to the lab results, protocols, medical histories, prescriptions and payment approvals they need. The healthcare system should serve providers and patients, not the other way around.

Financial Transformation for Better Business Health — Because it’s about care, our society is reluctant to think of healthcare as a business, yet the business challenges that organizations in healthcare face are similar to those in any industry. Whether for-profit or not-for-profit, an organization that manages its budget well, makes the most of its talent and resources, brings innovations to the way work is done, and improves on cost, quality and safety will benefit its patients even as it expands its own market. Business fundamentals are not secondary to providing better care; they are essential.

Operational Transformation with Better Connectivity — When you consider the number of providers and businesses involved in even routine treatments, you understand the critical need to improve information flow, automate transactions, and become smarter and more efficient at every step. Providing better connectivity streamlines and enhances how healthcare operates — streamlining the revenue cycle, reducing waste, improving safety and enabling access to the best treatment. Most importantly, it frees clinicians from chasing charts and filing claims to focus on what really matters: the needs of each patient.

Follow Successful Organizations on Their Path to Transformation
For this issue of Performance Strategies, we’ve selected five articles from previous issues that illustrate how successful health organizations are leveraging technologies and services to promote better health — in business, in care delivery and in connecting members of their healthcare community.

These organizations worked to gain “meaningful use” from their IT systems long before there was ARRA or qualification objectives. They set the vision for better health, focused on marshalling their leaders and empowering staff, used process improvement methods and deployed technology to support those efforts — and then they measured, monitored and improved again. Transformation is incremental, not instant.

Every improvement in the operation, infrastructure and delivery of care increases safety, reduces costs and improves outcomes. For healthcare organizations today, standing still is not an option. A vital organization moves forward, embraces innovation and is not left behind by change.

Patrick Blake is executive vice president and group president of McKesson Corporation. He has overall responsibility for all of the businesses within McKesson Technology Solutions, including McKesson Provider Technologies, McKesson Health Solutions, RelayHealth Pharmacy Solutions, RelayHealth Provider/Consumer Solutions and McKesson’s International Operations Group. Blake joined McKesson in 1996, and prior to his current role, served as president of McKesson Specialty Care Solutions, which under his leadership grew to become the second largest supplier of specialty pharmaceuticals in the United States.

Patient and Medication Safety

Interdisciplinary Care

Clinical Quality Improvement

InterQual Decision Support

Advanced Diagnostics Management

Connectivity Solutions

Revenue Cycle Management

Enterprise Resource Planning

Hospital Pharmacy Solutions

Managed IT Services


	Use of CPOE ensured appropriate use of blood transfusions, evolving Decatur's clinical use of IT into a higher level of guiding best practices.

	Disjointed flow at HealthEast was literally driving patients away. With new technologies and process improvement efforts, synchronization is the order of the day.

	Regional West used analytics to leverage the data it was generating to improve processes in ways that increased patient safety and financial performance.

	Closed-loop technology has decreased human error in distribution and administration, helping Comanche County reduce ADEs and improve overall patient care.

	Isolated by its location in rural Iowa, this small hospital is using information technology to create a much larger medical community — and qualify for stimulus funds.
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