REVENUE: $763.8 million
IT CHIEF: CIO Humberto Quintanar
BUSINESS COLLEAGUE: CEO Les Wong
WORKING TOGETHER Three years
IT/BUSINESS CHALLENGE: To stay competitive by completing numerous IT projects after a freeze on IT spending
UPSHOT: Hired a COO to prioritize projects and work on major initiatives
Like a scene from a Clint Eastwood movie, the dusty town of Lancaster, Calif., suddenly emerges out of the high desert some 70 miles northeast of Hollywood. Along one of its streets is Antelope Valley Hospital, a 379-bed acute care hospital that itself has elements of a Western drama playing out.
Only a few years ago, the hospital was in dire straits, with a reported 2003 operating loss of more than $5.4 million on revenues of $689.9 million. This came on the heels of unceremonious departures by the CEO and CIO, as well as an eventual shakeup of the board of directors. In the same year, then-CFO Les Wong took the reins as CEO and has held onto them ever since.
Wong's recovery plan called for freezing spending on IT projects for a couple of years. Under the previous CIO, Antelope Valley Hospital appeared in many technology trade magazines as a successful adopter of emerging technologies such as wireless networking and biometric devices. But many of those projects failed to deliver on expectations and resulted in millions of wasted dollars, says CIO Humberto Quintanar. IT's reputation got a black eye.
"We had hundreds of [computer] mouses with fingerprint recognition that weren't working. Some were 'recognizing' the wrong people," Quintanar says. "I had to throw them away."
Once cash flow and the board of directors stabilized last year -- the hospital posted $241,288 in profit on $763.8 million in revenues in 2005 -- Wong did an about-face. He opened the floodgates to IT, green-lighting projects such as bar-coding medications, document imaging, computerizing physician order entry (instead of having doctors handwrite prescriptions) and adopting electronic medical records. Antelope Valley's IT now has to spearhead a massive retooling of the technology infrastructure to support these planned improvements.
"Technology can help us speed information," Wong says, adding, "You look at how IT can improve patient safety."
Because Quintanar faces huge challenges with project overload, Wong brought in a new COO, Edward Mirzabegian, to help prioritize projects and ensure technology and business goals stay aligned on a day-to-day basis. This has freed up Wong to concentrate on nontechnology-related concerns. (Quintanar previously reported to Wong, but he now reports to Mirzabegian.)
Of course, Antelope Valley Hospital won't be riding off into the digital sunset anytime soon. After years of missteps and standstills, Wong, Quintanar and Mirzabegian have only just begun the next leg of their high-tech adventure.
This was first published in May 2006