Plans toward making Henry Mayo a digital hospital have received a boost following a decision by the state of California Community College Chancellor’s Office to provide a joint College of the Canyons/Henry Mayo $333,000 grant to train hospital employees in the use of a new computer system.
The money will provide about 850 employees with four to eight hours of training in the hospital’s Meditech computerized system currently being implemented in stages. Once it is fully operational, Meditech, an electronic medical record system, will result in improved patient care, improved patient safety, as well as improved patient, staff and physician satisfaction.
“The college has a mission to work with local employers to bring solutions for their training needs,” said Kristin Houser, director of the Employee Training Institute at COC. “Through this grant, we believe the community benefits because if Henry Mayo gets Meditech running smoothly, they’re going to be more efficient, and that’s going to result in a better delivery of health care for the Santa Clarita Valley.”
Henry Mayo has selected Meditech as its new computer-based system for its Electronic Medical Record and Health Care Information System, which is part of the hospital’s iCare initiative. iCare is scheduled to go live in stages.
“The sophisticated population of the Santa Clarita Valley expects quality health care delivered effectively and efficiently,” said Adnan Hamid, Henry Mayo’s clinical applications manager. “This expectation implies global use of technology throughout Henry Mayo and progress towards becoming a digital hospital. This grant will enable us to better prepare our employees for the upcoming changes so that we can better serve our community.”
The grant will cover the hospital’s cost of buying a computer-based training software program that will be used to train employees on how to use the new Meditech system. Furthermore, it will cover the training costs for instructors from the hospital as they train fellow co-workers on the new computer system.
The grant will also pay for the time of COC faculty members who are working with hospital staff to develop training aids and an evaluation of the project. It will also pay for the college’s purchase of laptop computers and LCD projectors that will be loaned to the hospital for employee training purposes. The money will also pay for the development of a 0.5 unit COC nursing course to train student nurses in the Meditech system, so that they are familiar with it when they begin training at Henry Mayo.