Millennium Medic

Going to Kansas City for the Cerner Health Conference?

Many of you will be in Kansas City in a few weeks for the Cerner Health Conference. We’ll be on hand as well from our “headquarters” at Lucky Strike Lanes & Lounge in the Kansas City Power & Light District a few blocks east of Bartle Hall and the CHC. We’d love to talk with you in person about your Millennium® system and will have more details in the next blog concerning our activities for the week.

Today, however, we want you to get excited about the city we call home. Here’s a list of 10 places you might not have thought to visit while you’re here…but are definitely worth considering. Our potpourri includes places that appeal to all sorts of interests: history, art, architecture, sports, music, barbeque (you are in KC, after all) and even potpourri.

1. The story of the sinking of the steamboat Arabia in the Missouri River in 1856 is just as fascinating as its discovery in 1987 buried 45-feet deep in a cornfield half a mile from the river. The Arabia Steamboat Museum in the River Market documents it all and displays the china, food, guns and clothing preserved in the silt. Outside the museum, explore the Farmer’s Market and stroll the Riverfront Heritage Trail to Berkley Riverfront Park.
2. The Money Museum inside the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City gives you a view of the automated vault and sends you home with a bag of cash (sadly, it’s shredded). Across the street from the Fed, you can appreciate the irony in the 65-foot-high sculpture of cargo containers at Memorial Park. Sculptor John Salvest’s installation spells out its title: “IOU/USA.”
3. The National World War I Museum is housed in the Liberty Memorial across the lawn from the bank. Its 55,000 items include everything from common soldier gear to rare artifacts. The “Man & Machine” exhibit shows German technology never before displayed in this country.
4. The National Archives west of the Liberty Memorial takes you back to an earlier war. The “Lee and Grant” exhibit contains artifacts and writings of two great Civil War generals.
5. The newly opened Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts south of Bartle Hall owes its impressive front facade to the 27 cables supporting the glass and steel structure. Tours are available, and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson performs “Transitory Life” at 7 p.m. on Oct. 9. For another KC architectural gem, visit the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. View 40 bronze sculptures by Auguste Rodin (of "The Thinker" fame) throughout the lobby.
6. Local entrepreneur Mary Carol Garrity, owner of the Nell Hill’s retail home stores, will speak at the downtown Kansas City Public Library at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 11. Also at the library is an exhibit of original illustrations by Missourian Thomas Hart Benton for some of Mark Twain’s signature works.
7. KC’s most famous hometown brewery, the Boulevard Brewing Co., gives free tours (including tastings). Reservations are required. If you prefer the taste of coffee, visit the Roasterie Kansas City down the road from the brewery.
8. Celebrate KC’s rich music and food tradition at the annual Rhythm and Ribs festival Oct. 8 at the American Jazz Museum in KC's 18^th and Vine district. The daylong festival features top jazz and blues performers and local food vendors. Also at 18^th and Vine is the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
9. If you prefer a faster pace, visit the College Basketball Experience inside the Sprint Center. Besides learning all you want about the game, you’ll find lots of areas for play.
10. It’s race weekend at the Kansas Speedway just a short interstate drive west of the metro area. Oct. 8 is the NASCAR Nationwide Series’ Kansas Lottery 300, and Oct. 9 is the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ Hollywood Casino 400. Next to the track is the Legends outlet mall, several major retailers, land for the soon-to-be-built Cerner office buildings and the Livestrong Sporting Park. Major League Soccer’s Sporting KC plays Chivas Guadalajara at Livestrong on Oct. 12. 

You might be coming to the CHC to learn and spend time with colleagues, but we hope you also take time to enjoy a few of the places and activities unique to KC. 

Have You Talked with the Clinicians Today?

By David Hallberg

How do you begin to manage an EMR system as complex as Cerner Millennium^® — with a back end containing more than 35 million lines of code from Cerner along with Linux, AIX, HP-UX, VMS, Oracle, WebSphere MQ, Sonic ESB, MySQL, Java, storage area networks (SANs), networks, clustering software, network connections between Oracle instances, Citrix, Windows servers and desktops; with a front end that has more than 4 GB of space in its code warehouse; and with countless application builds?

I recommend you start your work by stepping away from your computer screens and talking to the people who are using the system to care for patients. Are they frustrated with response times? System availability? The number of clicks to admit or discharge a patient? Don’t dismiss their complaints with the assumption that “clinicians just don’t understand computers.” They are highly skilled people who understand the most complex system on the planet: human life. You might be surprised what you can learn when you take the time to really listen. Or shadow them during their rounds.

When I worked at Cerner, I brought my stopwatch with me to one hospital to join the CMIO and director of nursing informatics on the floor. It took more than 15 seconds to place one order in PowerChart^®. That’s an eternity when you’re with a patient and still have the rest of your rounds to complete. When I took the data back to the engineering lead responsible for the code, she emphatically told me, “Fifteen seconds is fast enough. They (the clinicians) just do not understand computers.” No wonder the clinical staff was frustrated. The system was hampering their ability to provide patient care, but their concerns weren’t given any consideration by the people capable of addressing the problems.

So I encourage you to gather the staff’s list of concerns, criticisms and objections. If they feel they’re not normally heard, no matter how bad their experiences, don’t be surprised if they’re distrustful at first and reluctant to talk. Keep at it. Move through the obligatory moans and groans to get to their true desires.

Now that the easy work is done, begin to rebuild their faith in the system by evaluating each complaint against each need and determine how to address them. You can use Millennium’s greatest asset, its flexibility, to configure it for very specific purposes. If the issues outweigh your staff’s ability to correct them — we’re back to that complexity I mentioned earlier — don’t be too proud to seek outside help. (If you’ll be at the Cerner Health Conference next month in Kansas City, I’d be happy to listen to your system concerns and talk through some options.) Then you can begin the journey of reconfiguring this multifaceted solution set into the system your clinicians actually enjoy using rather than avoid using or simply tolerate.