Melissa Solito
October 2017
Melissa
Solito
,
MBA, BSN, RN-BC
CNO
Cerner Corporation
Kansas City
,
MO
United States
As the Chief Nursing Officer for the Investor Owned / IDN segment, Melissa has the responsibility of partnering with nursing leadership across some of Cerner's largest clients - Community Health Systems, Tenet and Universal Health Services (to name a few). In addition to her involvement with existing client relationships, Melissa is also a key resource on many new footprint opportunities such as IASIS, LifePoint, and Covenant. Whether it's existing or new business, Melissa's tireless work effort and drive have resulted in significant financial and brand success for Cerner. Please see some of the following specific client examples.
Universal Health Services
During 2016, we tapped Melissa to help partner and drive a strategic initiative to improve patient safety, throughput and nursing satisfaction at UHS. She came in for a meeting with the Corporate Chief Nursing Officer and IT leadership to better understand issues and challenges the client was facing, both technically and operationally.
From there, Melissa worked with the Cerner SBU team to tailor a holistic solution strategy that would address these challenges for UHS. The strategy included a phased deployment of several of our CareAware solutions across 26 Acute Care facilities, focusing on value achievement and aligned based on most urgent need.
Starting with CareAware PatientFlow UHS has been able to cut transport times by 50% in some departments and now has visibility to bed status and EVS resource distribution where they were previously flying blind. Due to the successful pilot, UHS is deploying PatientFlow across the enterprise and displacing a key competitor in that space.
The next initiative was to improve nursing and physician communication. We started with pilots in the Vegas market to achieve a means of communication between the primary admitting providers and nursing staff via CareAware Connect and set up critical alerts to primary nurse (excluding ED) or Code blue team. The team was successful in this initiative and we have approval to continue rolling this out across the rest of the facilities.
Next on the list is to address nurse satisfaction, time savings, patient safety and revenue capture utilizing Infusion Suite and VitalsLink. Our ability to execute on previous initiatives has provided us the opportunity to forego a pilot and quickly deploy across the entire enterprise.
With Melissa's involvement, the client has achieved material value and Cerner has recognized roughly $5M in bookings with $10+ million in upside across remaining contracts on the table.
Covenant Health System
Covenant is the market leader in the Knoxville, TN area, operating 10 acute facilities in the region. From day one of the sales process, Melissa developed deep and credible relationships with their corporate CNO. These relationships were a critical success factor in Cerner winning a $100M contract in 2016 and the project will begin with its first conversions in March 2018.
Melissa has called upon my Covenant C-Suite monthly to present, give updates and help share the vision for their mission to dramatically improve patient care through technology. On top of her numerous other duties, she is always available and onsite for key meetings. More importantly, she is the advocate for Cerner and Covenant patients as we design delivery approaches for several key nursing enhancements (CareAware Connect and the patient experience with Cerner Health Life). Melissa is an outstanding advocate for designing our systems with the patients in the center and exudes her passion for patient care in every meeting. It's this visible passion that has gained her the most senior level trust with Covenant's C-Suite.
Community Health Systems
There are numerous examples of Melissa going above and beyond at CHS over the years but one example stands out in recent months. Given Melissa's relationships with the corporate CNIO and CNO, she is often asked to present on their CNO calls with all facility CNO's. CHS leadership recognizes the credibility, competency and passion Melissa has for optimal patient care and feels comfortable in her being the face of nursing to their organization. This speaks volumes as they have never had a non-CHS employee speak at these meetings.
In 2016, Melissa heard many CNO's struggles with the massive amounts of data they have to manage and the complexity it creates having everything face up to ensure optimal care for CHS patients. She worked tirelessly with Cerner Consulting, IP and CHS leadership to design and implement the Cerner Clinical Leader Dashboard in 2016, which was a resounding success for CHS nursing leadership in giving the right clinical information up front in context real-time to the front-line nursing leaders. It's this commitment to building lasting relationships, listening to the client and being a credible leader at Cerner to drive and implement change that has earned this level of respect from CHS. This is only one of countless examples in which Melissa demonstrates an unrelenting commitment to excellence that makes Melissa stand head and shoulders above the rest and has dramatically deepened our relationships outside IT. Without Melissa's leadership and vision, none of this would be possible.
Tenet Healthcare
At Tenet Healthcare, Melissa has demonstrated leadership by championing clinical innovation and patient care. She has worked for years to help improve Sepsis mortality rates across the organization, which has led to the implementation of the early identification processes that have had measurable improvement of outcomes. Her work with Tenet's Applied Clinical Informatics team and Cerner's IP engineering has enabled Tenet to automate their discharge process to decrease the length of stay and remove barriers to discharge by increasing real-time communication across care teams. This automated process has been called 'eTempo' by Tenet and will be offered to other Cerner clients to help improve their patient care. This example of innovation has the potential of having a broad impact across the US. Melissa's leadership at Tenet in these areas will have an impact for nurses and patients everywhere.
Universal Health Services
During 2016, we tapped Melissa to help partner and drive a strategic initiative to improve patient safety, throughput and nursing satisfaction at UHS. She came in for a meeting with the Corporate Chief Nursing Officer and IT leadership to better understand issues and challenges the client was facing, both technically and operationally.
From there, Melissa worked with the Cerner SBU team to tailor a holistic solution strategy that would address these challenges for UHS. The strategy included a phased deployment of several of our CareAware solutions across 26 Acute Care facilities, focusing on value achievement and aligned based on most urgent need.
Starting with CareAware PatientFlow UHS has been able to cut transport times by 50% in some departments and now has visibility to bed status and EVS resource distribution where they were previously flying blind. Due to the successful pilot, UHS is deploying PatientFlow across the enterprise and displacing a key competitor in that space.
The next initiative was to improve nursing and physician communication. We started with pilots in the Vegas market to achieve a means of communication between the primary admitting providers and nursing staff via CareAware Connect and set up critical alerts to primary nurse (excluding ED) or Code blue team. The team was successful in this initiative and we have approval to continue rolling this out across the rest of the facilities.
Next on the list is to address nurse satisfaction, time savings, patient safety and revenue capture utilizing Infusion Suite and VitalsLink. Our ability to execute on previous initiatives has provided us the opportunity to forego a pilot and quickly deploy across the entire enterprise.
With Melissa's involvement, the client has achieved material value and Cerner has recognized roughly $5M in bookings with $10+ million in upside across remaining contracts on the table.
Covenant Health System
Covenant is the market leader in the Knoxville, TN area, operating 10 acute facilities in the region. From day one of the sales process, Melissa developed deep and credible relationships with their corporate CNO. These relationships were a critical success factor in Cerner winning a $100M contract in 2016 and the project will begin with its first conversions in March 2018.
Melissa has called upon my Covenant C-Suite monthly to present, give updates and help share the vision for their mission to dramatically improve patient care through technology. On top of her numerous other duties, she is always available and onsite for key meetings. More importantly, she is the advocate for Cerner and Covenant patients as we design delivery approaches for several key nursing enhancements (CareAware Connect and the patient experience with Cerner Health Life). Melissa is an outstanding advocate for designing our systems with the patients in the center and exudes her passion for patient care in every meeting. It's this visible passion that has gained her the most senior level trust with Covenant's C-Suite.
Community Health Systems
There are numerous examples of Melissa going above and beyond at CHS over the years but one example stands out in recent months. Given Melissa's relationships with the corporate CNIO and CNO, she is often asked to present on their CNO calls with all facility CNO's. CHS leadership recognizes the credibility, competency and passion Melissa has for optimal patient care and feels comfortable in her being the face of nursing to their organization. This speaks volumes as they have never had a non-CHS employee speak at these meetings.
In 2016, Melissa heard many CNO's struggles with the massive amounts of data they have to manage and the complexity it creates having everything face up to ensure optimal care for CHS patients. She worked tirelessly with Cerner Consulting, IP and CHS leadership to design and implement the Cerner Clinical Leader Dashboard in 2016, which was a resounding success for CHS nursing leadership in giving the right clinical information up front in context real-time to the front-line nursing leaders. It's this commitment to building lasting relationships, listening to the client and being a credible leader at Cerner to drive and implement change that has earned this level of respect from CHS. This is only one of countless examples in which Melissa demonstrates an unrelenting commitment to excellence that makes Melissa stand head and shoulders above the rest and has dramatically deepened our relationships outside IT. Without Melissa's leadership and vision, none of this would be possible.
Tenet Healthcare
At Tenet Healthcare, Melissa has demonstrated leadership by championing clinical innovation and patient care. She has worked for years to help improve Sepsis mortality rates across the organization, which has led to the implementation of the early identification processes that have had measurable improvement of outcomes. Her work with Tenet's Applied Clinical Informatics team and Cerner's IP engineering has enabled Tenet to automate their discharge process to decrease the length of stay and remove barriers to discharge by increasing real-time communication across care teams. This automated process has been called 'eTempo' by Tenet and will be offered to other Cerner clients to help improve their patient care. This example of innovation has the potential of having a broad impact across the US. Melissa's leadership at Tenet in these areas will have an impact for nurses and patients everywhere.