The Know-how That’s Remaking OU Well being right into a High-Tier Medical Heart

I maintain each day standing conferences with varied teams inside our know-how workforce, and the questions nearly at all times drifts to: “What’s at the moment’s problem?”  Generally that problem could be, “We will’t print at considered one of our ambulatory care amenities,” or “At present, we will’t ship diagnostic photos to our distant Radiologists.” The assembly helps us to focus our consideration, and because the CTO of OU Well being in Oklahoma Metropolis, my job is to get rid of the problems that crop up on these conferences and work to attenuate or get rid of these points repeating sooner or later.

To take action, we wanted to deal with the basis of the issue. This, together with our need to switch our digital well being document and income cycle system, contributed to OU Well being’s determination to fully overhaul our IT infrastructure in assist of our long-term organizational wants.

OU Well being strives to deliver innovation to our sufferers. As a tutorial well being system, we function considered one of 71 Nationwide Most cancers Institute-designated most cancers facilities within the nation, Oklahoma’s solely Degree I trauma heart and the state’s highest stage NICU, providing high-quality affected person care and operating scientific trials resulting in thrilling new remedies. Greater than fixing our each day complications, our IT overhaul will essentially remodel how we handle our infrastructure and administer the enterprise and scientific programs we use to assist our healthcare professionals and sufferers.

An entire revamp of a well being system’s IT infrastructure is a frightening process. To make use of a well-worn cliché, it’s like making an attempt to work on the engine of a transferring prepare. The method has taken dedication and cautious planning, the work of my workforce and the assist of know-how companions like Cisco to place collectively and roll out an answer throughout OU Well being’s websites.

A Contemporary Begin, a Greenfield Community, and Some Limitations

I’ve had the privilege of working in healthcare IT for over 13 years. My earlier expertise contains serving because the VP of Know-how Structure at Cablevision for seven years and two years at Discovery because the SVP of Enterprise Structure, the place I gained a wealth of information in telecommunications and leisure. Following a six-month sabbatical, I had the chance to return to my earlier function, however I made a decision to make use of my experience to help others in a way more impactful approach. Watching my spouse struggling for years together with her group’s IT as a household apply supplier and educator made me understand the difficulties that come up when coping with healthcare IT programs. Because of a buddy I had labored with earlier in my profession, I joined a healthcare consulting firm launching my profession in healthcare IT to assist physicians and sufferers obtain the very best outcomes in medical care.

OU Well being formally launched in July 2021, following a historic merger that mixed the College of Oklahoma Faculty of Medication school apply and OU Medication, Inc. (sole member, College Hospitals Belief) to create OU Well being — Oklahoma’s first absolutely built-in tutorial well being system. The merger aligned the OU Well being scientific enterprise with nationwide finest practices throughout the healthcare business and enabled the hospitals and clinics to turn out to be one unified and cohesive group.

Since my arrival at OU Well being in March of 2022, I’ve labored intently with our IT management workforce on the Epic migration challenge. This initiative moved OU Well being to a brand new EHR system. To attain this, we deployed a greenfield answer, which concerned establishing new networks, programs, information facilities and purposes, whereas conserving our legacy programs operating.

Sadly, the environment was not in the very best form. It featured outdated tools, overlapping options, outdated code, unpatched tools, and extra, which prompted quite a few challenges. Our community was additionally very gradual, which meant that it took 15 to half-hour for a radiologist to obtain X-rays and CAT scans at our distant areas.

This hindered workflows and prompted frustration amongst our clinicians and hospital employees. They needed to name us every time one thing went incorrect, and we had no method to proactively monitor and restore our programs. When a hyperlink went down, we didn’t know tips on how to restore it. It was clear that an overhaul was vital to make sure that our healthcare professionals might give attention to caring for his or her sufferers and never fear about technical points.

We Wished Redundancy, Resilience, and Efficiency—That Meant Cisco

Healthcare organizations are considerably conservative when procuring IT. We don’t search for the most recent answer, nor can we take a look at the most affordable. We don’t reduce prices as a result of sufferers’ lives are at stake. As a substitute, we take a look at essentially the most superior tried and true programs. We take this strategy when choosing lab tools, imaging and diagnostic programs, surgical provides, and extra.

At OU Well being, now we have a long-standing relationship with Cisco, and our lead engineer holds CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure certification. Our inside challenge supervisor additionally brings many years of expertise in managing large-scale Cisco deployments. Everyone knows that Cisco can ship extremely performant, redundant and resilient infrastructure. Nevertheless, my job requires me to be goal, so I attend occasions like Gartner Summits and the annual HIMSS World Well being Convention & Exhibition to see what’s on the market. I’ve a superb grasp of the know-how panorama, and I’ve but to discover a companion that may ship on its guarantees like Cisco.

Hospitals are 24/7 establishments, and hospital infrastructure should absolutely assist a never-down situation.

Once we created the specs for our new surroundings, we checked out three issues: excessive redundancy, excessive resilience, and excessive efficiency. OU Well being, like most healthcare organizations, runs 24 hours a day, seven days every week, and our infrastructure should absolutely assist a never-down situation. When it got here time to construct our new surroundings, we didn’t ask, “Why Cisco?” The actual query was, “Why not Cisco?”

Redefining Our Community with Software program-Outlined Networking

When it got here time to pitch our new infrastructure, the workforce labored with Cisco’s community architects, exterior companions, and our inside lead architects. We put collectively a funding request and offered it to our board. We anticipated our executives to approve lower than what our budgeted request was, however as a substitute we got the inexperienced gentle to construct every part we had requested for – a state-of-the-art community and system surroundings that may put OU Well being on the map as a top-tier medical heart.

We constructed our new community on Cisco know-how. Its core layer is Cisco ACI (Utility Centric Infrastructure), a software-defined networking answer, to assist section our community. We constructed redundant high-speed hyperlinks all through our Vast Space Community (WAN) and a number of paths connecting our core community to our hospitals, clinics, and ambulatory programs. Then now we have a number of routers to deal with our software-defined community and segmentation. If a router or section fails, we divert visitors to an alternate path.

We use Cisco ACI to route visitors to particular locations inside our community. A terrific instance is lab outcomes. Our lab tools doesn’t talk with the skin world, however our technicians should ship outcomes to our EMR. So, we’ve segmented the community to switch outcomes solely to particular servers that then add them to our information programs.

Affected person well being contains their healthcare information, and we prioritize the safety round our sufferers’ protected well being data (PHI). We used ACI to create a firewalled zone for PHI and different delicate information per HIPAA laws. Customers can solely entry that surroundings in the event that they’re performing a transaction requiring that data.

We additionally use Cisco UCS servers for scalable effectivity and agility, Cisco Id Providers Engine (ISE) for endpoint administration, and we go end-to-end on Cisco wi-fi options, consisting of Cisco Catalyst 9130AX and 9166 entry factors and 9800-80 controllers. As well as, we adopted Cisco VDI to combine a few of our legacy programs (operating on historic machines) into our new infrastructure. Virtualizing these permits us to maintain them operating till we’re in a position to change the programs with out disrupting care.

Migrating Our Knowledge Facilities to Guarantee IT Transparency

Our three new information facilities carry the load of our new community. Two of our information facilities are lively/lively and mirror one another, splitting our workloads in two and with every facility operating at 50% capability. Our third information heart is for catastrophe restoration (DR) and has redundant hyperlinks to all our hospitals, clinics, and ambulatory programs. Ought to the unthinkable occur and our major information facilities fail, the third information heart will guarantee we stay operational.

Considered one of our largest challenges and alternatives was migrating our programs and infrastructure to new, extra sustainable information facilities. As a substitute of constructing our personal on-prem information facilities, we determined to companion with a top-tier co-location facility who might host our information facilities and decrease our footprint dramatically. We partnered with TierPoint, and had been one of many first shoppers at their new facility constructed with effectivity in thoughts. They architected the facility, cooling, HVAC, and constructing supplies to scale back their carbon footprint. We profit from sturdy redundancy and backup options, and the energy-efficient know-how helps decrease our working bills whereas defending the surroundings. Shifting our information heart off-prem was considered one of our greatest enterprise and tech choices.

On June 3, 2023, OU Well being went dwell with Epic and our new infrastructure. We had already moved to our new major community in March 2023, however this was the ultimate take a look at. We’re already reaping the rewards of our new Cisco infrastructure. We’re now not fielding complaints about gradual Wi-Fi speeds, connection failures, community section outages and VPN points. OU Well being can entry what they want shortly, getting sufferers what they want sooner. I sit up for sitting down with our care groups to seek out methods to broaden, innovate and construct on our new platform.

Cisco Is Serving to OU Well being Elevate Our Group

Earlier than lengthy, my IT workforce will have the ability to leverage our new Cisco community to allow and execute OU Well being’s enterprise imaginative and prescient. We will combine new departments, areas, and amenities into our community sooner as a result of we anticipated the necessity to construct extra WAN connections and have a complete map of each present and future state. Previously, each community addition was a one-off occasion. However now, we will broaden our platform as wanted so as to add highly effective new purposes like information analytics and inhabitants well being administration (PHM) instruments to mixture affected person data throughout a number of programs and applied sciences. Now that now we have rolled out Epic, now we have a strong basis to assist us push the envelope of high quality affected person care and cutting-edge analysis.

The most effective minds gravitate to organizations that allow them add worth by supporting a enterprise imaginative and prescient as a substitute of fixing issues.

Our new Cisco infrastructure is a beneficial retention and recruitment software. Clinicians and researchers additionally wish to work in high-tech environments. They would favor user-friendly programs over scuffling with digital varieties, drowning in infinite emails, or ready hours for medical photos, take a look at outcomes, and trial and affected person information. Once they have essentially the most environment friendly instruments and IT works flawlessly, they will give attention to their sufferers and analysis.

OU Well being is on a mission to raise and remodel our group right into a top-tier tutorial well being system. Our management sees know-how as key to delivering on our imaginative and prescient and enterprise technique. We’re increasing our providers and analysis initiatives and can proceed to innovate in diabetes and most cancers care, pediatrics, and geriatrics. We wish to make a distinction in Oklahoma and past by bringing the very best medical care to the populations we serve.

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