Quiet integration

The hallways of the facility at 500 W. Votaw St. in Portland were brighter and busier than usual.

But the passing of the 12 o’clock hour came and went without fanfare — no fireworks at all.

It was a quiet change at midnight Wednesday as Jay County Hospital went live with its integration into Indiana University Health, officially becoming IU Health Jay.

“It’s quiet,” said IU Health Jay president Dave Hyatt about 15 minutes into his new role after having served as CEO of Jay County Hospital for nearly five years. “That’s what we want.

“The goal was seamless care. So far, things are going exceptionally quiet, which is excellent.”

The biggest changes at midnight were behind the scenes as a new computer system went online and a new electronic medical records system went live. Some employees reported struggles getting signed in for the first time, but by about 12:20 a.m. several new patients had already been registered using the new Cerner EMR.

Other than those shifts, the amount of activity in the building was the biggest difference from a typical overnight at the hospital.

“It’s noisy, and there’s a lot of people,” said nurse Zina Spahr, noting that she was reminding people to stay quiet because there were patients sleeping. “The lights are bright. We usually have the lights off.”

The added bustle came because a vast amount of support staff descended on the hospital to provide “elbow-to-elbow” support during the transition. That includes staff from IU Health Jay’s partners in the east-central region — IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital and IU Health Blackford — and from all over the state with facilities in Indianapolis, Lafayette and Bloomington all represented.

“There’s just people,” said nurse Melissa Mahoney, echoing Spahr’s thoughts. “At night, we turn the lights down, everyone quiets down. Tonight, there’s people everywhere.”

A command center, located in conference room C, was active with staff in and out, and a handful of employees were hanging out in a makeshift break room located in the administrative conference room. At 12:16 a.m., a staff member stopped in conference room B to grab a keyboard and mouse, a sign of the computer changeover that was underway.

“The logistics behind all of this is just incredible,” said Hyatt. “And really, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Mass amounts of equipment will now be phased in over the next couple of months.”

Those equipment upgrades will include new nurse call, mammography, bone density, diagnostic vascular, portable Xray and fetal monitoring systems, as well as new MRIs. The emergency room will get new power stretchers.

And one of the biggest changes — new patient beds and other furniture — is slated to be implemented during the last week of March.

The hospital underwent some immediately visible changes beyond the increased amount of staff wandering the hallways in the wee hours of the morning.

Display Craft employees late Wednesday afternoon put up a temporary IU Health Jay banner in place of the Jay County Hospital sign at the main entrance. (The permanent sign, which will be larger and further to the west, will be installed once the ground dries out enough for a new base to be poured.)

There were also some new IU Health signs inside the hospital. And some new equipment, including a Pyxis drug dispensing system, IV pumps and vital sign monitors, was already in use.

In the early going, everything with the integration was smooth.

“We’ve deemed this the best go-live ever,” came an unprompted comment from Terri Etnier, who works in patient access at IU Health Bloomington Hospital, as she walked the hallways about 12:20 a.m.

She attributed that early success to the organization and excitement of the hospital staff.

Hyatt said he’s been impressed with that aspect of the integration throughout the process. He pointed out that employees stayed late to print new IU Health badges Wednesday and were running back-and-forth to Muncie and Hartford City to make sure the hospital had everything it needed when the transition to IU Health Jay became official.

“I think it has gone exceptionally well,” said Hyatt. “I’ve been through integrations before, and just the teamwork between Jay County and IU Health has blown everybody away. … I would say 90 percent of this integration went exceptionally well. There were a couple speed bumps … but we worked through it.

“It’s been great seeing everyone pull together.”