2018
INFORMATION SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT
Message from the Vice President We are very pleased to present this annual report for fiscal year 2018, which highlights another tremendously successful year in a string of many for Information Services. Our department delivered the services and technologies necessary to support just about all of the key UTMB strategic initiatives in 2018. While those accomplishments are great and many, this annual report attempts to focus on and honor the people in Information Services who are committed to excellence each and every day. As our department leadership understands, without the knowledge, skills, and service of our staff, we would not be able to accomplish our part of UTMB’s mission. Many have suggested that we add the word “Technology” to our department name, but to us the word “Services” is intentional. It reminds us daily how exceptional service delivery is the key to our success in delivering systems and technologies. In fact, UTMB’s quest to deliver world class service to our patients, students, and other constituents is aided tremendously by support departments like ours. Our goal is always to deliver the very best service—from satisfying individual service desk requests to completing a large institution-wide capital project. Last but not least, I want to extend my sincere thanks to all the staff of Information Services for their work this past year, and for continuing to rise to the challenge of delivering IT services in a fast-paced, changing health care environment. While the current IT demand is already high, and we sometimes feel stretched beyond capacity, we know that technology will have an even larger impact on UTMB’s overall service delivery in health care, education, and research in the future than it does today. I am confident the quality and commitment of our staff will ensure success in such an environment. As you look through the pages of this year’s report, I hope you will see why we know that to be true. Todd Leach Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Information Services The term “information technology,” is most often associated with racks of computer equipment, flashing lights, humming sounds and data moving across networks at high speeds. The Department of Information Services at UTMB is about so much more than that. As with our institution, the lifeblood of our organization is its people, their dedication to the work and to our customers. Information Services is full of strengths—we have built robust physical systems and infrastructure in order to house, mold and meld all of that moving data. We have implemented well-established project planning and management methodologies so that we can plan each step of our journey and gauge our progress on the road ahead. Information Services’ collective storehouse of technical knowledge and experience is vast and deep.
Services is full of “ Information strengths—we have built robust physical systems and infrastructure in order to house, mold and meld all of that moving data.
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For all of that, our greatest strength is that we care…all of us. Everyone from the Chief Information Officer to the newly-hired desktop support specialist understands the reasons we are here.
…for UTMB and its mission …for our customers …for our patients and visitors …for each other We are implicitly focused on customer service and support, because we know that what UTMB does is important. By supporting our customers, we support the mission. In 2018, our major accomplishments include: • Administrative Information Systems (AIS) implemented major upgrades to the PeopleSoft business application, without relying on consultants. • Clinical Information Systems (CIS) upgraded the Epic EMR and brought two new major components online—Epic Radiant and Epic Beacon. • IS Operations helped to open 16 new clinics and renovated or relocated 14 others. • Business Intelligence & Data Administration (BIDA) implemented UTMB Discover and contributed substantially to Best Care improvements. • The IS switchboard personnel, data center and desktop support staff continued their essential and behind-the-scenes work, connecting UTMB to the rest of the world.
“Information Services employees
consistently amaze us with their accomplishments.
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Mission
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From leadership to the most recent employee, the Information Services team grasps the importance of connecting with the customer… providing [a] solution in an efficient and meaningful way.
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Information Services provides IT systems and infrastructure in support of UTMB’s mission to improve health for the people of Texas and around the world.
Vision Information Services will lead the delivery of technology and services that enable UTMB to define the future of healthcare.
Values We provide reliable systems and infrastructure. We provide the best service possible to our customers. We secure the information we are trusted to protect. We enable our customers to provide excellent care, leading edge research, and exceptional education. We keep technology current. We balance our values with fiscal responsibility. We care about our staff, their work environment, their work-life balance, and their professional growth and development.
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Customer Service Integral to the core of Information Services is the common thread of customer service. From leadership to the most recent employee, the Information Services team grasps the importance of connecting with the customer, understanding what that customer needs (even if they don’t yet know) and providing the solution in an efficient and meaningful way. Customer service takes many forms and helps with success at any scale. IS teams worked tirelessly to prepare the new Jennie Sealy Hospital in 2016, for example. Voice and data teams ran cabling, desktop support teams installed PCs and thin clients, and Epic teams made sure that UTMB’s newest hospital was ready to capture any and all patient data before the doors ever opened. “We are a service organization,’ says John Gibson. “It’s what we do.” John is a Software Systems Staff Specialist in Administrative Information Systems. He’s a quiet person who doesn’t particularly like attention, but he does enjoy working with customers. John is respected throughout IS for his customer service skills and customer relationships. “In my case, it’s partly a pride/reputation thing—I want to be known as someone customers can come to and get help. If I can’t help them, then I’ll do the research and find someone who can provide the assistance they need. I know that when I need help, I want someone who will be respectful, polite and actually help me out, so that’s what I want to provide to my customers.”
“ If I can’t help
them, then I’ll do the research and find someone who can provide the assistance they need.
”
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Building the right relationship with your customer is key to customer service. Ragini Desai is manager of Laboratory Services for Pathology, one of UTMB’s largest clinical departments. Ragini is also an IS customer who credits a lot of her team’s success to the relationship she has built with the Epic Beaker team. The two teams have worked closely over the last couple of years to move the tracking, processing and reporting of lab results into Epic’s “Beaker” module. Ragini says, “We are all here to do the basic things we need to do, as a lab. We don’t see Information Services, we don’t see big posters of what they’ve done, how many tubes of blood they have collected or whatever, but none of those things can be done without them.” “Instead of emails going back and forth, and everyone speaking their own lingo, which doesn’t always make sense to other people,” says Ragini, “…the IS Epic Beaker team started traveling to the Galveston campus to office with Pathology’s Laboratory Services for two days of every week, so the two teams could get to know each other and build a common vocabulary.” “The first thing it did was...everyone started to understand what it takes from each person on the project team to get things done,” Ragini said. “We felt comfortable communicating with each other, and we just started getting work done, because there was more understanding. We had the medical director attending the meetings, the managers and supervisors, anyone who needed to be involved wanted to be there.” Over time, the two teams formed a tight working relationship, built on mutual respect. “From the lab side we come to them and say, ‘This is what we want to do, how can we do it?’” she said. “The Beaker team has been excellent at just listening and giving their opinions: ‘yes, we can do this in Epic’ or ‘no we can’t,’ and it’s just great.”
lab team…really “ The respects what the
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Beaker team is doing.
Ragini said the lab team “...really respects what the Beaker team is doing; and we are very happy and impressed with how much the Beaker team has learned from the lab side—when the project goes in, they understand what we are saying. There’s a positive attitude from everybody.”
“People who have come here from other places have said that they have not seen an IS department that is so welcoming,” said Ragini. “When we want to do something, the Beaker team is ready to listen to us.” “That’s what I like about this team,” she said.
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“People who have
come here from other places have said that they have not seen an IS department that is so welcoming… When we want to do something, the Beaker team is ready to listen to us.
”
“We are implicitly
focused on customer service and support, because we know that what UTMB does is important. By supporting our customers, we support the mission.
”
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Facts & Figures for Information Services Training classes
Epic users
2,010
11,877
People trained
Radiology exams in Epic
12,054
330,295
Telephones
PeopleSoft job applications created
Lab results in Epic
15,598
119,304
Calls answered by switchboard
Campus Solutions student applications
818,101
10,989
Major projects
Purchase orders processed
Emails received by UTMB
3,000,000 Emails sent by UTMB
1,200,000
64 Active IP addresses
~43,000 Service Desk telephone requests
124,951 Service Desk email requests
39,694 Systems access requests
Monies collected through ePay
$18,157,941 ImageNow pages captured
Automated text messages to patients
1,218,186 e-Prescriptions issued
1,185,782 e-Prescriptions issued (controlled substances)
133,677 CMC Telehealth encounters
178,585
1,752,891
CMC Outpatient visits
Web pages/related files
2,040,881
304,908 Patient registrations
CMC Outpatient “nursing limited service� visits
17,910,996
208,869
1,600,906
Supported servers
MyChart users registered
CMC Number of medication administrations
159,705
26,500,000
Leased computers
Monies collected through MyChart
CMC prescriptions and refills
16,238
$5,489,449
5,000,000+
~900 physical, ~1900 virtual
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76,594
3,177,647
Business Intelligence & Data Administration (BIDA) In FY18, the “tip of the spear” for Information Services was the Business Intelligence & Data Administration (BIDA) division. Business Intelligence is a fairly new area for IS; the division was created in 2015 with the aim of centralizing and harnessing data that UTMB already collects but isn’t using to its full potential. IS calls this project “UTMB Discover.” Rev Sellappan, the director of IS Business Intelligence and Data Administration, said, “The fundamental goal of analytics and UTMB Discover is to transform data from its obscure, raw form into clear information and actionable insights. UTMB Discover harnesses the power of data that our organization already owns and uses it to generate action...quickly and efficiently.” With data warehouses—centralized repositories of financial, clinical, and academic data—we assist our customers in mining the data UTMB already produces. This allows us to spot trends and make discoveries among the mounds of data. BIDA has built and presented several online applications. In an effort to reduce its hospital readmission rate, UTMB implemented several care coordination programs, and leveraged BIDA’s analytics platform and applications to improve the accuracy and timeliness of readmissions data. This resulted in a 14.5 percent relative reduction in the 30-day all-cause readmission rate, and 1.9 million dollars saved through cost avoidance. BIDA’s reporting footprint has grown in recent years. They provide reports and integrations that satisfy the demands of UTMB executives, patients and doctors through Clarity and Caboodle (Epic’s reporting suite), and external agencies such as Vizient and Press Ganey. As their work progresses, BIDA will be able to place some online tools in the hands of their customers, giving them the power to build their own applications, create data relationships that reveal hidden insights, identify potential issues and respond with creative solutions. The BIDA team will be standing behind those customers, offering support, assisting as needed, and developing new ways of utilizing a wealth of data to improve and innovate UTMB’s services for patients, students, visitors and employees.
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Full IT Service/Application Availability 13 Month Average (September ‘17 – September ‘18) IT Service/Application 13 Month Average (Goal is 99%Full Availability; Metric basedAvailability on monitored problems and changes) (September ‘17 – September ‘18)
(Goal is 99% Availability; Metric based on monitored problems and changes)
100.00% 99.00%
98.56%
98.00% 97.00% 96.00%
95.98%
95.00% 94.00% 93.00%
Information Services-Operations
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98.54%
98.25%
98.42%
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