One-on-one With NYU Langone Medical Center CIO Paul Conocenti, Part II

We walked away with the fact that we absolutely do have a vendor that has an enterprise solution. They have an excellent reputation in the area of service and we went to the board with that. And we got approved within this time period of economic, one would say, depression. And the board totally bought into our vision, which is to be an integrated world class patient-centered academic medical center.

AG: Were you involved with the selection of Eclipsys?

PC: Yes.

AG: Do you think you picked that system because there was a different vision of what you were trying to do at that time?

PC: Absolutely. At the time, I challenged that because I thought their vision was too narrow. So, the vision for selecting Eclipsys was purely inpatient. There was no integrated thinking other than inpatient involved. Basically, Eclipsys was put in to replace the old system. So, that strategy was prompted by cost, not vision, not business value. There was no business value associated with the selection of Eclipsys. It was cost-driven because the platform we had was dying. We were on a 30-year-old platform. The predominant reason that investment was made was because we knew we had an aging platform and we had to do something.

AG: So you just bought something similar?

PC: Similar to replace the old system. By the way, it has an ED system and pharmacy component, we’ll add that in and we’ll integrate that, and so the integration that we did with Eclipsys was integrating the inpatient setting, because that was the focus, that was the vision, it wasn’t to bring in the ambulatory, it wasn’t to connect the ambulatory with the revenue cycle, and to bring in the billing components. We’re patient centered, when we’re done with this transformation, a patient coming into the NYU network will get one bill. They’re not going to get 15 bills from different places that are all NYU because it’s a fragmented revenue cycle component, they’re going to get one bill that has all their services, and if they want to pay that bill, then they go to one portal and they’re going to be able to pay that.

If they want to schedule a visit with any of the providers within our network, they’d be able to go and schedule a visit, they’ll be able to see results, they’ll be able to transact. They’ll be able to, within the various consenting and permission levels, if they want to engage in our research community, say, “Okay, I want to sign up for a research feed, so that I can get the latest breaking research for the particular diseases and conditions of mine,” they’ll be able to do that.

If they want so sign up for being open to clinical trials that are happening within their specific situation, they’ll be able to do that, because we’ll be integrated with our research community. We’re doing a lot of work to integrate our clinical trial management system with our clinical system.

So it’s pretty far reaching, it’s great to be a CIO here. Of course, working here has its own issues, which basically means now you’ve got to do it. Most people are fighting to build a case for what they have to spend, and using up all their energy on that, but I don’t have to do that.

AG: Be careful what you wish for, right?

PC: True, be careful what you wish for, but it’s a good challenge.

Part III