When implementing Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) projects, providers and organizations have only one goal in mind, and that is to be successful. From day one, administrators take into consideration many factors including cost, resources, and even timelines. Certainly, these factors are the foundations for any HIT project, yet they are not the key elements for success. The reality is that HIT produces an impact on how private practices, healthcare organizations, and particularly their staff, deliver their services. Their ability to quickly adapt and embrace new changes holds the key to any successful implementation.
 
HIT is a process of change that causes different emotions on individuals directly or indirectly involved in the project. From your front desk staff, to your physicians, they all have different reactions as to how integrating this new technology in the office affects their daily routines. John Kotter the author of Leading Change explained that people approach to change based on how they see themselves and how they feel about it. If your staff feels excluded from the project and considers that their opinions are not taken into consideration, no matter how well you execute the project plan, the outcome will not be what is expected.
 
At this point, if you are a physician or administrator considering implementing new technology in the office, you are probably asking yourself what you can do to secure an effective execution of your project. The answer lies on properly evaluating the person who will be responsible for carrying the project. This person must be someone highly educated and passionate, who is also rigorously trained on how to manage every aspect of a project including the planning, execution, and delivery, and who is capable of dealing with the emotions that encompasses this type of transitions.
 
The Masters Degree in Biomedical Informatics (MSBI) at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine offers students a variety of courses such as Managing Organizational Behavior for Medical Informatics, Consumer Health Informatics, Leadership in Health Information Technology, and Human-Computer Interaction in Health Care Settings, that are designed to provide future HIT professionals all the necessary skills to manage any type of project. MSBI students are extensively trained on how to make staff assessments and develop techniques of engagement designed to promote change and turn feelings of disassociation into positive proactive feelings.
 
In 2008, immediately after obtaining my Bachelors Degree in Psychology, I joined the MSBI program. At that time, people asked me what does psychology have to do with information technology. To be honest the answer even surprised me. This is a field of analysis that combines cognition with rationality, much like psychology. Since graduating from the MSBI program in 2010, I have worked as a Clinical Analyst for the University of Central Florida-Regional Extension Center and now as Project Manager for Patient Point. In my current position, my main responsibility is to oversee the implementation of a number of different technology products and services. My clients vary from a single practice doctor, to hospitals from all over the country. The training I received in the NSU-MSBI program undoubtedly gave me the foundation skills necessary for this job. I am very passionate and excited to serve as the funnel between healthcare providers, patients, and technology.


Barry University’s Division of Nursing is now an American Heart Association (AHA) training center offering Basic Life Support (BLS) courses and renewals for health care providers.
 
Four Barry professors, who are also registered nurses, provide the critical hands-on training to students, faculty and health care professionals interested in becoming CPR certified.
 
Clare Owen, a Barry professor and intensive care unit nurse, explains every student will receive a basic life support course from certified and experienced faculty who have decades of nursing practice in adult critical care as well as pediatric specialty.


The University of Miami School of Business Administration, which has a long history of providing top-ranked business education programs to those working in the health care sector, is leveraging its expertise to help hospitals improve patient care and reduce costs. The School has been working with Indiana-based health care products manufacturer, Hill-Rom, to understand the relationship between people and the company’s latest innovation, the “smart bed.” Since 2009, Steven G. Ullmann, professor of management and director of the School’s Center for Health Sector Management and Policy and Howard Gitlow, a professor of management science and executive director of the School’s Institute for the Study of Quality, have been studying the implementation of a next-generation smart bed in the UM Hospital along with David Zambrana, the UM Health System’s chief operating officer and chief nursing officer.
 

Professors Howard Gitlow (far right) and Steve Ullmann (second from right), UM Health System’s David Zambrana and senior research associate Amy Zuo are looking into the benefits of smart bed technology
“An effective deployment of smart beds can improve patient safety, helping a hospital deliver higher-quality care while lowering overall costs – three interrelated health care policy objectives,” said Ullmann of Hill-Rom’s innovative bed, which uses sensors to monitor a patient’s condition and movement, sending alerts to nurses’ mobile devices and the nursing station when a problem is sensed.
 
"If used with knowledge, skill and discipline, it will likely provide superior performance," says Gitlow, who has been working with fellow Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Amy Zuo (MBA ’05), a current senior research associate in the School of Business.
 
The university’s partnership with Hill-Rom also continues to grow as president and CEO of Hill-Rom Holdings, John Griesch has agreed to join the advisory board of the School’s Center for Health Sector Management and Policy. “We also have been able to bring our applied research back into our classroom environment,” Ullmann added. “Our students get a hands-on perspective, in a case format, of important real-world issues in health care, technology and organizational culture.”
 
For nearly 35 years, these students have included seasoned physicians and health care professionals looking to hone their business skills through the School’s 24-month Executive MBA in Health Sector Management and Policy program, which was recently ranked number one in the state and number four in the nation among MBA programs by Modern Healthcare magazine. It is the only health sector MBA program in Florida to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME), the premier accrediting body for healthcare management programs. In addition to the Executive MBA program, the School offers a joint MD/MBA program with the Miller School of Medicine, an undergraduate major and an undergraduate minor in health sector management and policy, and the business component for the Doctor in Nurse Practice (DNP) program at the University’s School of Nursing and Health Studies.


When a deadly cholera epidemic struck the town of Thomazeau, Haiti, last year, a small group of people from Broward County’s Nova Southeastern University, including a public health professor, a Haitian physician who had graduated from the public health program, and students in a tropical disease class, answered the call for action.
 
Dr. Jean-Baptiste Ceme, who graduated from Nova Southeastern University in 2003 with a Master’s of Public Health degree, was born in Thomazeau, a town of 52,000 residents located northeast of Port-au-Prince. When he heard about the cholera epidemic from the town’s mayor, he started working on a proposal, and contacted his former mentor, Dr. Cyril Blavo, Director of the Masters of Public Health Program and professor of pediatrics/public health at Nova Southeastern University.
 
“Something had to be done, because people were dying,” said Dr. Ceme, who had done a health needs assessment of Thomazeau as his graduation practicum project. He later founded a non-profit organization called Haiti New Vision, Inc. to develop a Women’s Health Center in Thomazeau.
 
Dr. Ceme discussed a plan of action to control the cholera epidemic one family at a time with Dr. Blavo, who heads a small non-profit organization called International Health Initiatives, Inc. The two doctors developed a strategic plan to address the epidemic, and raised $1,000 from friends and colleagues through their two non-profit organizations.
“We had to quickly identify where the outbreak was centered, the prevailing conditions of drinking water, the sanitation status of the community, who was at the greatest risk, and how aware the community was about the problem,” said Dr. Blavo.
 
A local Thomazeau physician and a field worker volunteered to undertake a needs assessment by visiting various sectors of the town, interviewing people and assessing conditions. Their findings revealed that many of the local people did not sufficiently understand the disease, its mode of spread, and essential prevention behaviors that would limit the spread.
 
Three goals were established to meet the challenge: to assure clean potable water access for the highest risk communities, to assure access to oral rehydration solution for the main health center in Thomazeau, and to implement health promotion activities on good sanitation practices.
 
To assure clean potable water access, the team purchased and supplied 150 five-gallon bottles of clean water to the highest risk families, and purchased 3,000 water purification tablets for high-risk families.
 
To provide access to oral rehydration solutions, they purchased and supplied a stockpile of Oral Rehydration Solution bottles to the key health unit.
 
Finally, to implement health promotion activities on good sanitation practices, they identified, trained, educated and equipped two health workers to provide cholera prevention instruction to local religious leaders, teachers and local employers in Thomazeau.
 
Dr. Blavo’s students in a tropical diseases class eagerly assisted with the Thomazeau initiative. “This happened to be a real-life situation that was timely while we were having the class,” said Dr. Blavo.
 
The students assisted with the strategic plan and research, using Google Earth to study the town and infrastructure to see where water sources were. They did research on water purification and came up with recommendations for the ratio of the tablets to a gallon of water.
 
At the end of the four-week Thomazeau project, no new cases of cholera have been identified, and the intervention was applauded throughout the community. Better understanding of a cholera outbreak was apparent, and the capacity of the community itself to plan a future intervention was confirmed.
 
“It really takes very little to make a big difference to people in developing countries,” said Dr. Blavo. “It is very important to do a needs assessment to understand their problems, rather than deciding what their problems are. In this situation, we guided the citizens of Thomazeau to identify resources in their own community and empowered them to solve their own problems.”
 
Dr. Ceme noted that 300 families were helped with just $1,000. He is continuing his work to develop a Women’s Health Center. “Thomazeau has a lot of needs, and the citizens are grateful for support of any kind.”       
 
This small, but enthusiastic coalition to attack the cholera epidemic in Thomazeau reinforces Nova Southeastern University’s reputation as a college that cares, going beyond its primary mission of providing school and university curricula by reaching out to the community with diverse services and resources. The university was recently named one of the “20 Colleges Most Committed to Community Service” by Best Colleges Online in USA Today.


Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine, in collaboration with Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, Florida, has launched a new critical care fellowship. The two-year program, officially named the NSU-COM/Palmetto General Hospital Critical Care Fellowship, has been approved by the American Osteopathic Association for two positions. Alex Morizio, M.D., has been appointed the founding program director.
 
“This is an important new program that will help serve the critical care needs of South Florida and beyond with culturally competent and caring physician experts,” said Robert Hasty, D.O., FACOI, assistant professor of internal medicine and director of the NSU-COM Internal Medicine Residency Program at Palmetto General Hospital.