Becker's Speaker Series: 4 questions with Western Reserve Hospital Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Clinical Informatics, Pamela Banchy, RN-BC, PMP, CHCIO

Pamela S. Banchy, RN-BC, PMP, CHCIO serves as chief information officer and vice president of clinical informatics for Western Reserve Hospital.

On Thursday, Sepember 21, Ms. Banchy will speak on a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place September 21 through September 23 in Chicago.

To learn more about the conference and Ms. Banchy's sessions, click here.

Question: Looking at your IT budget, what is one item or expense that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?banchy

Pamela Banchy: In a hospital environment, we're always looking for ways to improve efficiency — whether that's faster door-to-physician times, better teamwork, more effective information sharing, faster rounding, etc. The McKesson Paragon Clinician Mobile app has helped improve all of these things. The app has allowed our clinicians, residents, students and care team members to participate in more efficient rounding, which in turn improves patient care. The app puts patient-specific information directly into the physicians' hands via their mobile devices. This also comes in handy on the floor when we have limited availability of some of our clinical unit hardware. Providing remote access to review patient records easily on the physician's phone or mobile device is extremely helpful for quick patient information access.

Q: Finding top tech talent is always a challenge. Say a CIO called you up today to ask for an interview question that would distinguish the best candidates from the mid- to low-performers. What question do you suggest he or she ask?

PB: When it comes to tech talent, the No. 1 skill I look for is problem solving. In complex IT systems like the hospital, you need experienced employees who know their trade well enough to troubleshoot the problem and solve it. So, the most important question to ask is simply this: "What single project or accomplishment in your career would you consider to be your most significant?" Over the course of discussing that question, you're able to really dig into what needs or problems went along with that accomplishment, and how the employee rose to the challenge of solving it.

Q: We spend a lot of timing talking about the exciting innovation modernizing healthcare. It's also helpful to acknowledge what we've let go of. What is one form of technology, one process or one idea that once seemed routine to you but is now endangered, if not extinct? What existed in your organization two to five years ago but not anymore?

PB: There was a time when pagers were strongly tied to physicians, and that's old technology by today's standards. It would probably surprise most people to learn that pagers lasted much longer in the hospital environment than they did anywhere else — physicians were still using them at hospitals in the last two to five years. Of course, pagers had their usefulness, but with the proliferation of mobile technologies like the smart phone or tablet, relying on pagers no longer makes sense. A mobile device can do all the things a pager did, plus it can house dozens, if not hundreds, of apps that better equip physicians to move quickly when treating and diagnosing patients. Like the McKesson app mentioned previously, the fading of pagers and the rise of mobile devices have made a tremendous impact on efficiency and information access.

Q: Tell us about the last time you were truly, wildly amazed by technology. What did you see?

PB: Our hospital recently welcomed a new, non-sentient staff member: a germ-zapping robot. We named her Violet. Violet uses pulsed xenon ultraviolet light to quickly destroy bacteria, viruses, fungi and bacterial spores, effectively reducing hospital-acquired infections that pose a risk to patient and employee safety. It's hard not to be amazed when you see it in action. The robot resembles R2D2 from Star Wars when it's powered down, but when you deploy it, the round, bulbous head unit rises out of the body, making it look like the robot from the old Lost in Space TV show. That's when the bright lights come on, shining around the room and disinfecting every surface the light touches. We had a team of reporters here from local print and broadcast news outlets, and even veteran journalists who have seen it all were pretty amazed to see Violet in action.

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