Oregon Health & Science University on Tuesday opened a centralized Mission Control center — the first time since the coordinating effort launched in 2017 that all of the technology and teams have been in one centralized location.
Driven by the coronavirus pandemic, OHSU grew its original Mission Control concept — monitoring and tracking bed and resource capacity across the OHSU Health system — to coordinate data sharing among health systems across the state. The new OHSU Mission Control Center continues to manage OHSU Health system capacity, and now also houses the Oregon Medical Coordination Center, or OMCC, which uses real-time data about available hospital beds and critical care services to efficiently place patients in facilities where they can be treated, and the Oregon Behavioral Health Coordination Center, or OBCC, which does the same for inpatient behavioral health care.
As OHSU, like the rest of the country, faces ongoing challenges with health care resources and staffing, expanding and innovating statewide information sharing has helped Oregonians receive the care they need, when and where they need it. The new facility will streamline staffing and operations for Mission Control.
“Without centralized information and coordination, patients’ care teams are calling around to colleagues for higher level of inpatient care than they can provide to their patient, trying to find the one hospital which has capacity right now to take their patient,” said Matthias Merkel, M.D., Ph.D., OHSU senior associate chief medical officer for capacity management and patient flow. “Now we are instead working with unprecedented collaboration, better connecting Oregon’s health services, improving access for Oregonians, and supporting clinicians at every level of care through OMCC and OBCC.”
Growing to meet Oregonians’ needs
OHSU’s information coordination efforts were made possible with state and federal funding to acquire the technology — in collaboration with GE HealthCare and Blackbox Healthcare Solutions — and build out the physical space for staff. Both components are essential, Merkel says: While the technology gathers data, the teams provide the analysis and connections that get patients to the care they need.
OHSU collaborated with GE HealthCare for the initial Mission Control in 2017, becoming just the second health system in the United States to incorporate real-time analytics into daily hospital operations, and the first to coordinate care among separate partner hospitals using GE HealthCare’s Command Center Software Platform.
“We have worked with OHSU since 2017, using innovative technology to help improve access to care for all patients in the state of Oregon,” said Bree Bush, GE HealthCare General Manager, Command Center. “This began with OHSU Command Center to optimize system flow, and we together pioneered the Oregon Medical Coordination Center and the Oregon Behavioral Health Coordination Center, setting standards for equitable mental health care for patients across Oregon.”
In the face of the COVID-19 public health emergency, OHSU collaborated with GE HealthCare, Oregon Health Authority, hospitals and health systems statewide to expand the concept beyond OHSU Health, creating a capacity tracking tool that provides real-time hospital census data, powered by GE HealthCare’s technology, to inform hospitals about inter-hospital transfer options for patients. The COVID Capacity Center system centralized information-sharing efforts and improved coordination of critical care resources available across the state, as the number of critically ill COVID-19 patients surged. What is now known as the Oregon Capacity System is currently operated by Apprise Health Insights, the data subsidiary of the Hospital Association of Oregon.
“The Oregon Capacity System is a nationally recognized model for data sharing across hospitals and health systems,” said Andy Van Pelt, CEO of Apprise Health Insights. “Since developing the model here in Oregon, we’ve partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to roll it out to states across the country and are expanding the Healthcare Capacity System tool to include other care settings, such as post-acute and behavioral health, to bring transparency across the continuum of care. The capacity system is a game-changer and a true Oregon innovation.”
The initiative worked so well that in 2021, OHSU took it beyond COVID-19 to create the OMCC, which works with OHA and all hospitals and health systems across the state to better serve Oregonians who need an inter-facility transfer to a higher level of care than is available in their communities. The OMCC was essential for Oregon’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and later proved invaluable during the respiratory illness public health emergency that struck the state in 2022.
“Coordination is the foundation of effective patient flow,” said Stephanie Gilliam, M.N., RN, NE-BC, director of Mission Control. “By ensuring that every team member is in sync, we are able to streamline processes, which results in reduced wait times, minimized errors, and ultimately enhances patient care and outcomes.
“The Mission Control approach is a balance between relying on technology, yet allowing a human perspective, which promotes more equity in patient placement and coordination,” she added. “It makes the difference between chaos and compassionate and efficient care.”
OHSU recently received a $4.5 million grant for OMCC from OHA through a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention subcontract. In addition to funding some of the operational aspects of OMCC through June 2026, it will allow the regional resource collaborative network to create a playbook for all types of disasters and emergencies, informed by lessons from the pandemic, to allow seamless integration of the inter-facility transfer coordination work into regional and statewide emergency response.
“Our benchmark for this project has been to eliminate health inequities in Oregon,” said DeWayne Hatcher, operations chief for the Health Security, Preparedness and Response Program within OHA Public Health. “The OMCC has been tremendously successful in improving timely access to acute care hospital services for people who live in rural and frontier areas of Oregon during times of duress or emergency. This also benefits critical access hospitals by streamlining the process of locating a high-acuity bed, freeing up those community hospital staff to spend more time doing patient care where they are urgently needed. Nearly half of the OMCC patient transfer connections are originating in rural areas of Oregon.”
Behavioral health coordination
The latest innovation at Mission Control is OBCC, a hub for information on bed capacity among 11 facilities that provide inpatient mental health care. Behavioral health care providers across the region — including OHSU Health, Unity Center for Behavioral Health, PeaceHealth, Kaiser Permanente, Trillium Family Services and Oregon State Hospital — participated in developing the tool from the early stages, providing real-time data and feedback to ensure the most valuable information is shared most effectively.
After funding the initial OBCC effort with $1.5 million in the 2022 session, the Oregon Legislature in 2023 provided OHSU with $5.4 million for OBCC to support continued build-out and staffing needs. Of that, $1.4 million was one-time funding and $4 million is ongoing. In the federal budget passed in 2022, OHSU received one-time congressionally directed spending of $800,000 to build the OBCC space as part of the remodeling project for Mission Control.
“OBCC will ensure clinicians have a full picture of available resources as they work to help someone in mental health crisis,” Merkel said.
“Mission Control data and teams not only get patients the care they need, they’ve also been critical in helping clinicians, health leaders and policymakers better allocate resources during public health emergencies,” he continued. “OHSU is proud to work with partners to continue to advance and innovate. These coordination efforts are an important investment for the health of Oregonians.”