Perhaps it’s no accident that the acronym for Health Information Exchange is HIE, which literally means “to go quickly or hasten,” since the man spearheading the Mid-South eHealth Alliance seems driven by a contagious sense of excitement and urgency to spread the HIE gospel to Memphis-area medical professionals and institutions.
According to Executive Director Cameron Brackett, that beneficiary category includes all Memphis-area medical professionals because the ability to electronically and instantaneously access a patient’s vital medical information does unquestionably improve the speed, quality, safety and cost of patient care.
The idea of collecting patients’ data in one central repository that is readily accessible to doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other healthcare providers and patients for secure sharing is not a new one, and few people dispute the logic behind developing such a system. But Brackett pointed out that it was logistics, rather than logic, that was delaying the momentum of Mid-South e-Health Alliance’s HIE project prior to his assuming the executive director’s chair seven months ago.
Since the Alliance’s creation in 2007, its growth has been limited by its low profile, Brackett said. “Those who used it got value out of it, but there was not a push toward getting the word out. Now, however, we’re comin’ at 'em!”
A Southerner at heart, Brackett spent his childhood in Jackson, Miss., and later married a native Memphian. Part of the life journey that brought him to Memphis was the longing to come home, which happened to be linked to an unexpected opportunity that meshed perfectly with his profession and made the choice irresistible.
A Baylor alumnus with a degree in computer science, Brackett always had an interest in technology, even as a kid tinkering with computers that his dad, an insurance executive, brought home from the office.
The catch was, he admits, he didn’t really know what you do with computer science. His search for purpose, and an opportunity to innovate within the computer field in ways that were meaningful and beneficial to the medical community, took him from FedEx to engineering leadership positions at GE Healthcare in ultrasound and centricity, and to Cerner, where he led the reinvention of cardiology and patient monitoring R&D businesses and chaired the development of the standard for handling, storing, printing and transmitting information in medical imaging.
He then served Honeywell as director of research and development for its Milwaukee-based Life Care Solutions, producing innovations in remote patient monitoring, population health management and patient engagement, before making the Memphis connection.
Along the way, he guided the exploration of global healthcare technology joint venture opportunities for several Asian-Pacific companies, helped launch Cerner operations in
India and Australia, and acquired more than 30 patents worldwide in healthcare technology.
His career focus changed dramatically at a late 1990s Chicago trade show for radiologists, where he was introducing a new GE full-field digital mammography reading station that was totally voice-driven — a revolutionary concept for its time, Brackett noted.
“Although the radiologists loved it, they weren’t interested in buying it,” he said. “What they really needed, they said, was information about the patient: lab reports, history, medications — everything else about the patient that the mammography station didn’t show. At that point I recognized that I needed to be in an electronic health record company, after spending all this time in imaging." Consequently he focused his efforts in that direction.
Meanwhile, in Memphis, the 4-year-old Mid-South eHealth Alliance Board commissioned a consulting group to deliver an evaluation. Their report confirmed that MSeHA was a viable business opportunity, now able, due to the healthcare high-tech stimulus, to offer different and greater potential for facilitating providers’ efforts to meet the CMS meaningful use requirements — specifically the requirement that physicians exchange health information with unaffiliated providers.
Memphis Bioworks Foundation won the bid to assume new management of MSeHA about a year ago, and a few months later began its search for an executive director to lead the Alliance’s growth and expansion.
“It wasn’t just a job, for me,” Brackett said. “It was exactly what I was looking for: an opportunity to materially contribute to the community, leveraging my experiences and skill sets, which were really about healthcare, technology, entrepreneurship and innovation. I knew it was meant to be, to come to Memphis — which was just great for me.”
Meaningful use is driving some substantial demands on the clinics and offices that need to provide continuity of care with patients who go to Baptist or Methodist or Regional One or such, but don’t have the technology connections with all these places, he explained.
“MSeHA is making it easier than ever for them,” he said. “We’re here to help them and provide for that service. We’re starting to launch the campaign and talk with independent clinics and offices about how we can make their lives better and what we can do to facilitate movement in this direction.”
Currently 16 hospitals and 16 ambulatory clinics in the region share information through the service.
“A massive amount of data has been contributed to this service over the last five years,” Brackett said. He points to last year’s numbers – when more than 200,000 patients were viewed in the MSeHA health record system – as proof that the system is being used quite heavily.
“Our goal is to continue to grow that utilization by bringing in more healthcare providers," he said, "including independent practices and clinics that want and need that technology connection, too.”
Brackett has strategies on the drawing board for additional expansion goals that he says will be revealed in due time.
In his leisure time, Brackett enjoys time with his family, which includes two sons, ages 9 and 11. He is a dedicated endurance runner who runs five miles every other day and five to 10 miles on weekends.
