April 14, 2014 - Have you ever wondered about the role of a Chief Nurse Informatics Officer (CNIO)—what the position entails and what benefits it presents for healthcare organizations?
MEDITECH Nurse Advisory Committee member and CNIO Sharon B. Kirby, MSN, RN-BC, at Centura Health (Englewood, CO) recently sat down with us to share her experience and discuss how CNIOs can help to facilitate EHR adoption.
Could you tell us why Centura decided to create a CNIO role, and what that entails for you?
In order to have successful EHR utilization, the leaders at Centura felt we needed an executive nursing informatics role to complement the CMIO role that had already been in place. They envisioned the CNIO would be responsible for technology across the clinical care continuum—not only for nursing, but ancillary clinicians as well.
As the CNIO since 2012, it’s been my job to lead our team of clinical nurse informaticists (which includes inpatient as well as ambulatory and home care) in addition to staying on top of government mandates, communicating with hospital executive and industry leaders, and coordinating a variety of clinical IT projects throughout our large healthcare network. I work in tandem with our CMIO to ensure there is collaboration between physicians and nursing/ancillary in all of our EHR projects.
How do you assist providers with using the EHR for improved care coordination?
Our main goal at Centura Health has always been to promote provider and clinician adoption of the EHR to improve patient outcomes. We have a strong team of physician trainers and physician informaticists that works closely with our nurse informaticists to provide staff support. I feel our informatics team does an excellent job of mapping current and future workflows, and identifying any gaps. This has really helped us to mitigate risks to the project upfront.
We successfully rolled out CPOE at all 15 of our hospitals using this model, and we now have over 90 percent CPOE usage. I find nurses contribute a substantial amount to these workflow sessions because they are users of the EHR 24/7, and are most knowledgeable about the different processes that occur within the hospital. In addition, our physicians have come to appreciate the unique, global clinical perspective that a nurse informaticist can provide. We intentionally include our providers and clinicians in our EHR decision making, to make sure that we can address their concerns and make important strides toward our long-term collective goals.
Being on a single MEDITECH database has driven many of our standardization efforts. In order to achieve consistency, we formed a patient-centered documentation team--including clinical nurse informaticists, physician informaticists, as well as members from our ambulatory and home care areas. This team shares queries across the care continuum, to ensure that we are using all the information available to best tell the patient’s story, no matter when or where they receive care.
Our focus on care excellence has led us to standardize documentation and provide improved options that are patient-centric, rather than provider-centric. At Centura, we’ve worked very hard to develop this culture and encourage acceptance of new technologies. We make it a priority to avoid working in silos so we can all center our attention on what is in the best interest of our patients.
What advice would you give to other healthcare organizations that are interested in creating a CNIO leadership position?
I would say definitely do it. For us, it led to a very effective and cohesive informatics team, while giving nurses and other clinicians a voice at the executive table. The prevalence of CPOE has showed us all how important physician adoption is. But we should also not lose sight of the contributions our nurses and other clinicians make to the continual development of the EHR. It is important for all of us to continue to collaborate when it comes to leveraging technology to serve larger objectives--like improving patient engagement, outcomes, and care coordination.
With a CNIO aligned with our CMIO, we are better able to build stronger relationships on both the physician and the nursing side. All of us have a better chance of succeeding when we can join forces for a common mission.
For more information about the CNIO role and its importance, read The Rise of the CNIO from Advance Healthcare Network for Nurses.