Best Hospital IT 2016: #2 Small Hospital
Mahaska Health Partnership, Iowa
IT Staff: 6
Overall Score: 75.82%

Chris Hickie, information technology director at Osakaloosa, Iowa-based Mahaska Health Partnership, has been with the critical access hospital for eight years. Even at a small facility in the rural heartland, it's been a whirlwind of activity.

"The past five years we've seen just such a rapid change in regulatory needs and compliance," said Hickie. "Even though the projects and innovations we do here at the organization are very business-driven, we focus such a large amount of our time on compliance."

With a staff of just six, clearly there are other areas Hickie would prefer to focus his teams' energies. But he's pleased with the creativity with which his small group is able to solve problems across the hospital, and make patients' lives there better.

"As a critical access hospital, we don't always get to lead the technology, from a financial resources perspective," he said. "Sometimes we have to turn to open source technologies, like using Raspberry Pi for digital signage across our organization." Or other forward-looking projects, like helping "future-proof" the rooms in a newly constructed wing by installing AppleTV on every TV in that wing. 

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"Patients can Airdrop movies to their TV in their patient room – even other simple little things like doing iPad integration with a third party interpretive service, so patients can have better care and compliance with interpretive services that are face to face," said Hickie.

In the near future, "I really think population health software systems and data warehousing is going to be key," he said. "We're generating mounds and mounds of data that will allow us to analyze it and interpret it in ways that will not only benefit our primary care providers and how we're able to provide value-based care but I think just really lead to better decisions in how we treat our patients here in a small community."

Mahaska Health "puts a large focus on ensuring we have the tools to perform our jobs effectively and efficiently, and our team just has an unrelenting pursuit of services support of the tools that we use here at the organization," said Hickie. "And our team just truly understands our role as frontline supporters of technology for providers and clinicians at the organization."

Workplace culture was one of 87 questions senior executives (CIO, CMIOs, etc.), directors of IT, clinical and systems analysts, technicians, help desk staff and others responded to on our survey.

Overall Ranking