In this episode

Community health systems stretch limited resources to serve a large patient population, often of underinsured and uninsured patients, and manage to provide critical services like in-home maternal visits and preventive testing. In this episode, Linda Stevenson, CIO of Fisher-Titus Medical Center, dives into the strategies her organization uses to provide impactful services, reach more people, and maximize resources.

“Rural health care and community health care is bigger than you think. There’s over 6,000 rural, community, and critical access healthcare organizations in the United States… [And] it’s up to us to get creative, because of our margins, to stay viable and stay on top of technology.”

– Linda Stevenson

 

Key takeaways

Fisher-Titus Medical Center is a cornerstone of their Huron County community, serving as the largest employer in the county and working directly with the state of Ohio to pilot in-home maternal visits. And like many rural, community, and critical access organizations, Fisher-Titus continues to provide innovative care with small margins. Stevenson shares more about the importance of organizations like hers:

Critical access, community, and rural healthcare organizations are incredibly important. 

“The number one thing people need to understand is, Rural health care and community health care is bigger than you think. There’s over 6,000 rural, community, and critical access healthcare organizations in the United States,” said Stevenson. She also pointed out that Fisher-Titus Medical Center is the biggest employer in Huron County, Ohio.

“We may be small as a hospital, but we’re wide in terms of our services. We have nursing home, home health, and we have senior living. We have our own EMS. We have ambulatory physician group. So, we view it as being there for our patients from birth to death,” Stevenson said.

“We serve four counties in total,” she said. “[And] it’s up to us to get creative, because of our margins, to stay viable and stay on top of technology.”

CIOs like Stevenson work creatively to deliver innovative care to their communities on small margins. 

Despite the importance of critical access, rural, and community healthcare organizations, they operate on small margins, said Stevenson. “It’s up to us to get creative, because of our margins of less than one percent, to stay viable and stay on top of technology to bring things to our patients. So we partner [to do that].” One example she provides is four community hospitals in her area, including Fisher-Titus, that formed a consortium to work together. For example, “we might negotiate with a vendor for a better rate. It’s our four unique hospitals saying, ‘Vendor X, we’d love to work with you. Can we get better pricing if all four of us select the same solution at the same time?'”

Asked about Fisher-Titus’ work to pilot in-home maternity care, Stevenson used a wider lens. “We have grants and programs where we partner with the state of Ohio, [for example] to provide better prenatal care…and make sure we have the technology for our maternity patients,” said Stevenson. “We’re also very closely linked with [our regional HIE and discuss] ‘What’ll what do we do next? How do we exchange maternity care records next and make sure that maternity services out in a community physician’s office, that information can then flow to the hospitals?”

“We are more nimble and agile because of our size. But on the other side of the coin, our resources are are more scarce,” said Stevenson.

Stevenson’s recommendations for fellow CIOs: Stay connected, and don’t forget about the basics.

Stevenson spoke  highly of her peer group and staying connected regionally. “I love Gartner, I love CHIME,” said Stevenson. “But I’ve also made it a job of mine to talk to every one of the CIOs in the state of Ohio, whether it’s Cleveland Clinic or other smaller organizations. We stay close. We say ‘Hey, what are you seeing, what are you doing?’ ‘Where did you go with this purchase?'”

She also noted the importance of focusing not just on innovation as a CIO, but on infrastructure, technology upgrades, process improvements, and optimizations that help the basics run well.

“When I got here, Fisher-Titus was known for having the very first smart room hospital in the country. Probably back in 2014. People would come from all over the country to see the smart rooms and all the automation. So I was very excited when I joined in 2019,” Stevenson remembered.

“But I found that the foundation was crumbling, technology hadn’t been upgraded, processes hadn’t been developed…the first three years were about rebuilding [the basics],” she said. “My proudest moment rebuilding the infrastructure to make Fisher-Titus successful.”