Global CIO: A Remarkable Story Of Health Care SuccessGlobal CIO: A Remarkable Story Of Health Care Success

Support From Cisco
Two more thoughts from Bost on Adena's success: First, he offered this unprompted comment about one of his primary technology partners, Cisco: "It's been fascinating, the range of ways they've supported us beyond just selling us equipment. Their value and help went far beyond whatever I would have imagined. I've been in this IT business a long time and have worked with a lot of IT vendors, but I haven't ever had an experience like this."

That type of strategic-partner approach in the health care business could become more prevalent as the federal government floods the market with billions (Or is it millions? Trillions, anyone?) of dollars of funding that tech companies will, understandably, be all too eager to grab. And flush with the prospects of pursuing all that cash, they should all be held to a higher standard of service, perhaps along the lines of what Bost describes above.

And second, Bost returned again to the very human side of the cost/benefit equations that EHR projects can address, noting that sometimes, in spite of all the careful planning and calculations and research, unexpected and wonderful results come to those CIOs willing to seize the initiative in pursuing truly transformative approaches.

As a small hospital system, Adena can't afford an extensive neonatal center and relies on phone conversations with specialists at a big hospital 70 miles away in Columbus. Often -- too often, Bost said -- newborns with unusual conditions about which nonspecialists could not be certain had to be taken from their mothers within hours after delivery and transported by ambulance to Columbus to be seen by specialists, with each of those trips not only causing considerable agony for the families involved but also costing $10,000.

But a new telemedicine system allows the specialists in Columbus to review images, charts, and other info from Adena in real time, making it possible for diagnoses to be handled remotely without the already-anxious families having to undergo the distress and financial cost of the newborn being sent by ambulance to Columbus.

That system allowed Adena to cut the number of physical transfers in the first year from 140 to 70, and in the second year from 70 to 35. "We never anticipated we'd get such a huge success from it," Bost said, "but the impact on the parents -- they were just terrified, as you can imagine -- has been huge. And at $10,000 per transfer, that's very real money, too."

Indeed it is. It might not stack up to the $36 billion (that's the correct number) the government's pledged to EHR technology and projects, but when we reach the point where we can start shrugging our shoulders at saving $10,000 on each of 35 different occasions, then we'll probably also know that it's time to look for another career.