Hayes Review: December 2009

Note from Pete

By Pete Butler

We’ve received two holiday gifts already that are, as MasterCard puts it…priceless. One is our just-announced KLAS rankings. We were ranked Top Overall Services Firm for the third year in a row, and we received a Best in KLAS award for Technical Services. I’m proud to say we’ve been at the top of KLAS since 2005!

Our second holiday gift was all your good wishes that poured in following our holiday card and our donations to Susan B. Komen for the Cure and Toys for Tots. Thank you!

I believe there are more presents for us all in 2010 in the form of an upturn in the economy, at least for healthcare. Stimulus funds are starting to flow in, and people are dusting off their stalled project plans and getting ready to improve their organization’s operations in a variety of ways.

We are seeing more requests for help with pre-implementation planning, system optimization, ARRA readiness and revenue cycle assessments. It seems that people are learning to work smarter with less money by tuning up what they already have, and making doubly sure they set the stage correctly for new system implementations or migrations.

It is easy to get lost in the details of our daily lives. Information technology can seem far away from patients’ lives. However, now is a good time to step back and realize that all of us in the healthcare IT industry are helping people on a very personal, yet systemic level. When physicians can access all their patients’ information quickly and easily, it helps the patient. When medical errors are reduced or eliminated through an eMAR system, it helps the patient. When the patient is someone we know, we realize how important all of these systems are.

Here’s to 2010.

Pete Butler