My name is Tony Greseth, and I am one of the IT Coordinators at the National Rural Health Resource Center. In an effort to expand my role at the Center, I took a 6-month Health Information Technology (HIT) course through Normandale Community College in Minnesota that focused on practice workflow and information management redesign. I am now an American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Certified Healthcare Technology Specialist (CHTS).
In April, I took a trip with our Chief Information Officer (CIO), Joe Wivoda, to DuBois, PA. We were heading out there to visit with the Pennsylvania Mountains Healthcare Alliance (PMHA), a Rural HIT Network Development (RHITND) grantee. Upon arriving in DuBois, we met with the PMHA CIO Greg Snyder and got a quick tour of the PMHA office. Before long, we were on the road again, this time headed to Jersey Shore, PA. We were there to meet with two of the PMHA network hospitals, Jersey Shore Hospital and Fulton County Medical Center.
A quick side note as to the pronunciation of DuBois, if you should ever be visiting. For whatever reason, I wanted to pronounce it as something similar to doo-bwah, but I was mistaken. The correct and simpler pronunciation is doo-boys. I find it interesting how other regions handle pronunciation slightly different, so enjoy that little piece of information!
Upon arriving in Jersey Shore, we sat down with members of both hospitals and talked about how things were going for them with their HIT. We talked about areas of success and those that were more of a struggle. There were questions about Meaningful Use and interpretations of the rules for Stage 2. An interesting point, and something that stuck with me, was made when someone said that “Rural is not small urban.” To me, that meant we can’t take the solutions that work for urban and just scale them down for rural communities.
It was interesting to learn more about interface engines and how they allow for communication between different systems. There was talk about data centers and the differences between cold, warm and hot sites. I also learned the differences between secondary, tertiary and quaternary care. It was a great learning opportunity for me as I try to build on my HIT knowledge. We concluded our stay in PA by sitting in on a PMHA conference call where there was more conversation about Meaningful Use.
DuBois is a beautiful town and the folks with the PMHA are doing great things. It was a wonderful trip for me as it allowed me to step outside my strictly-IT world and see how hospitals are using that technology to improve the quality of care they provide.
