Healthcare is notoriously siloed, which poses a costly barrier to coordinated care. Omer Awan, senior vice president and chief information and digital officer at Navicent Health, and his team successfully used health IT to remove barriers, improving quality and the patient experience while increasing savings for Navicent Health. For that, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) named Awan the 2019 CHIME Innovator of the Year. The award was presented on Monday, November 4 at the CHIME Fall CIO Forum in Phoenix.
 
“Omer dreams big and then finds ways to make his dreams a reality,” said CHIME Board Chair Shafiq Rab, MD, senior vice president and CIO at Rush University Medical Center. “He and his team developed a system-wide platform that they have used to design customized solutions, always keeping the customer in mind. They’ve shown there are no limitations for innovators who use their imagination.”
 
Awan partnered with a software development company to develop OrCarestra, an innovation platform that the Navicent Health team could use to integrate applications that coordinate existing systems and streamline the delivery of care. Among their achievements:
 
A scheduling platform that allows community physician practices to quickly schedule procedures at a hospital, replacing faxes and phone calls;

An electronic patient check-in process using the airline boarding as a model that makes canceling and rescheduling easy, removes the burden of filling out paper forms and cuts down the wait time;

An intuitive patient management tool that displays patient case activity on a single page. It includes assessment tools, care plan recommendations, identifies gaps and offers patient education resources; and.

A physician directory that allows physicians to customize their biographies, photos and search terms, making it faster and easier for patients to find providers who match their needs.

“Innovation is never about one person; it is a team sport and I am fortunate to have such fantastic teammates,” Awan said. “Thanks to their great work, we are well positioned to meet the strategic objectives of the enterprise.”
 
The Innovator of the Year Award is given annually to a member of CHIME whose creative application of technology has demonstrated value to their healthcare organization with an innovative solution that can be shared widely with the CHIME membership.
 
Awan also received CHIME’s 2018 Transformational Leadership Award.