Ok I’m a little outspoken, but have some personal experience here that goes back a few years. This hospital was run by executives that literally “ran for the hills” when I was present as a consultant doing some work for them, not everyone of course or I would have had no work there as there were some calling for my services. They need Health IT in the worst way and it goes to years of neglect and fear from the number of “non participant” managers they had. 
They are moving ahead now but I had to work with an IS manager that should have never been in the position he was. He was promoted to that job as the higher up executives shared no interest in Health IT, thus had no clue what type of individual and what skills they needed to fill the job. I literally went around the system and found computers on the network with no virus protection! In addition to that I found employees who had Active Directory access (Outlook Exchange) that were not added to Group Policy…hello…was there anyone home! Employees were using peer to peer video and music sharing programs and nobody even knew why they should not be on a hospital network! We have all read the many posts on this blog and all over the internet about confidential information being shared.
I did some consulting on a software nutrition program to be used with grants for the outreach programs with Cal State Long Beach students and the IS manager didn’t even know how to install an instance of SQL server and had to help on that and I didn’t know their network configurations but could help him figure it out! Thank goodness I took my tablet to all the meetings I had with this individual as he remembered nothing. See there are real advantages to not using paper even for handwritten notes and I could query and find my notes in a heartbeat.
In addition, they had no remote support so I showed and instructed the IS manager on how to set up an internal VNC (which is free) network of software support so they could give users support without having to physically leave the IS department. Since this time they have had a couple other IS managers in place who were notches ahead of this one individual.
Please acquire this hospital and help them out or at least contract for some IT service from the areas of expertise that Memorial has! They have a lot of great people working there and it was not their problem at all, just management that was scared to death to talk any type of Health IT. I tried 3-4 years ago to get some interest in CRM and like talking to a blank wall. I have never seen upper management with such a big “fear” factor in my entire life of consulting. 
Long Beach Memorial Hospital on the other hand is the exact opposite and very much up to date, and I have never done any consulting there, but have a couple of interviews with how they progressed with technology and this is why I say they need to acquire that small hospital and help them out so more people don’t lose jobs.
If you look in the upper right hand corner of this blog at the QIK videos, look at video number 2 to hear their Chief of Cardiology, Dr. Mike at the hospital who is a great guy and doctor. He spoke a little bit after one of my presentations about some of the “free” technology help they could avail themselves of, since they weren’t getting any advice otherwise and I offered to do a presentation to help out. A while back I encourage the hospital and with the help of Dr. Mike they entered the hospital into the Siemens “Win an MRI” contest too. Dr. Mike, by the way saw the notice on this blog and got involved.
Many of the physicians at Long Beach Community are also on staff at Long Beach Memorial as well so from here it looks like it could be a good match.
What happened there at Long Beach Community Hospital in those years should never be allowed to occur with lack of technology, it was sad and needless, and again the big fear of technology and tech denial were the big things driving it all, again so very sad! I was frustrated as I could not seem to perk that “level of curiosity” here as hard as I tried.
Ok enough of a rant here, so let’s look at how far Long Beach Memorial is moving along, they are doing wonders by comparison. A while back I had the chance to interview Dr. James Leo on their conversion to electronic medical records. It’s a great interview with Dr. Leo going into some really good detail with their innovations through 
the change over too.
Long Beach Memorial Center’s Conversion to Electronic Medical Records – Interview with Dr. James Leo
The Children’s Hospital at Long Beach Memorial recently opened a brand new facility and I had a chance to take a tour with the CFO not too long ago and what they did with building the new hospital in using both “green” technology as well as Health IT was phenomenal. After the tour I attended the opening ceremony.
Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach – Brand New Pavilion Carries Focus on Patients and “Green”
This could end up being a real plus for both hospitals! BD
Long Beach (Calif.) Memorial Medical Center is in excusive talks to acquire Community Hospital of Long Beach following a period during which the 452-bed medical center would operate the 81-bed hospital, they said in a joint announcement.
Community Hospital of Long Beach reported a loss of $1.1 million on revenue of $313.3 million in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2009, according to the online American Hospital Directory. Long Beach Memorial, meanwhile, tallied a profit of $53.7 million on revenue of $1.8 billion for the period ended June 30, 2009, according to the directory.
Calif. hospitals explore possible acquisition - Modern Healthcare
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