Three questions with Garri Garrison: The lasting impact of 2020

March 29, 2021 / By Garri Garrison, Kelli Christman

We sat down with 3M Health Information Systems Division Vice President Garri Garrison to talk about some of the lasting effects from a tumultuous 2020 and how we’re helping to remove barriers to providing safe, community-based care.

If 2020 taught us anything, it is to be agile. What’s the biggest shift you’ve seen in the health care industry over the last year?

It’s not necessarily a shift, but one of the biggest impacts 2020 had on health care was the importance of being able to deliver care anywhere. Moving in-person appointments to telehealth, drive through testing in parking lots and stadiums, and standing up field hospitals in a matter of weeks are just a few examples of how health care moved from the four walls of physician offices and hospitals out into the community. It was so amazing to see our health care community unite to bring safe, efficient patient care to the individuals who needed it. I think this will be one of the long-lasting effects of the pandemic as health care continues to evolve.

As our clients are working to bring health care out into their communities, how is 3M HIS supporting them?

Our first priority is always to identify ways we can quickly and efficiently support our clients, but this partnership is essential during a global pandemic. One of the greatest challenges we faced was to help some of our clients rapidly stand up field hospitals in a way that continued to support their need for accurate and complete clinical documentation and alleviate some of the administrative burdens on physicians. We did this by allowing physicians to use our 3M speech transcription tools and functionality free of charge during the crisis. We worked to remove any barriers to ensure our clients could provide the high quality care their communities needed, including shifting our implementations and consulting services to remote support and providing COVID-19-specific analytics to our 3M™ 360 Encompass™ System clients.

Time for your favorite question! What’s a great client story you’ve heard so far in 2021? 

I hear so many great stories from our clients, it really is the best part of my job. One that comes to mind recently is Michigan Medicine. They just partnered with 3M HIS for our full suite of clinician and revenue cycle solutions to address the growing administrative burdens on their clinicians and to eliminate the inefficiencies of their various unconnected systems. Since we added clinician solutions to our portfolio through our M*Modal acquisition two years ago, we’ve seen better communication between clinicians and the revenue cycle teams, resulting in more accurate and actionable data for improved patient care and hospital bottom lines. I’m excited to follow their journey and share updates along the way.

Garri Garrison is division vice president for 3M Health Information Systems.

Kelli Christman is senior marketing communications specialist at 3M Health Information Systems.