A PARTNER FOR SUCCESS: Healthcare System Turns to Nuvodia for Project Management Expertise

MedStar Health is the largest healthcare provider in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., region. The extensive not-for-profit healthcare system encompasses ten hospitals, including two large regional hospitals (MedStar Washington Hospital Center and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital), a rehabilitation hospital, seven community hospitals, and a broadly dispersed network of ambulatory and community-based care sites.

MedStar Health’s Challenges

Consolidating Radiology Practices

Within MedStar’s ten hospitals, seven distinct radiology groups existed, most of which were private practices or contractual services. This fragmented structure presented several challenges that MedStar addressed by consolidating the separate radiology practices into a single entity called MedStar Medical Group Radiology (MMGR).

A System-Wide Network

In 2014, MMGR worked to consolidate and expand its radiology services by developing an enterprise radiology system (ERS). The ERS included diagnostic image viewer, voice recognition, central archive, and a new workflow solution. It would allow any exam to be read by any radiologist, at any place, at any time. MedStar radiologists would be able to quickly and easily share images, tap subspecialty expertise across facilities, and better balance workloads.

A Knowledgeable Partner

Implementation of the new ERS would require MMGR to work with multiple MedStar facilities, multiple teams of IT professionals, and multiple technology vendors. For the project to succeed and achieve its goals, MedStar needed a partner with the expertise and experience to keep the ERS implementation on track.

Nuvodia and MedStar Health’s Solution

MedStar turned to Nuvodia for help with the complex ERS implementation. Nuvodia provides top-level project management, working closely with MedStar leaders, MedStar IT staff, and multiple technology vendors. Nuvodia also supports the project with business analytics and includes IT infrastructure and staff training.

Steven Brick, M.D., Physician Executive Director of MMGR, said Nuvodia emerged as the partner of choice for the project because of its:

• Project management expertise — “This is very complex implementation. Our primary Nuvodia contact and project manager, Leanne Scott, does a fantastic job. Our IT team is very happy with what she has done and her contributions to the project.”
• Proven experience — “We felt Nuvodia had considerable experience in working with large radiology groups and successfully bringing together multiple hospitals into one system-wide PACS.”
• Technical expertise — “We had already selected Medicalis as our technology platform. We felt Nuvodia had more knowledge of and proven experience with Medicalis – and how it interfaces with a variety of different systems – than anybody else.”

The Result – An Evolving Partnership

The ERS implementation is currently underway with an expected completion date in 2016. In June 2015, the project met its first big milestone with the successful deployment of PowerScribe 360 voice recognition in several of MedStar’s hospitals.

“The voice recognition implementation went very well, with very few issues and bugs,” Dr. Brick said. “Nuvodia was key to that success. It’s the first of many steps, but it was a big win for the project.”

“With this ERS implementation, there are so many moving pieces…so many different people and entities. The Nuvodia project management team was critical to keeping all elements of this complex initiative focused and on track.” — Steven Brick, M.D., Physician Executive Director MedStar Medical Group Radiology

Citations

• MedStar Health – Healthcare Provider
• Nuvodia – Project Management
• Nuvodia – PACS.

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