Staff Spotlight: Kim Gaddy

Kim Gaddy, director of Information Systems and Decision Support, was ready to jump into a project like the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) long before she joined Yale Medical Group (YMG). Now she is one of Epic's top cheerleaders, full of excitement, encouragement and philosophical thoughts about embracing change.

“People are stressed about Epic, and I say just smile, be happy,” said Gaddy, speaking with a quiet confidence. “I love smiling, I love laughing, and I know everyone is going to be OK, so I’m just trying to spread some cheer around Epic and say we’re going to be alright.”

Gaddy is responsible for managing the information system, interface/integration, training and decision support needs of YMG’s revenue cycle and practice management services. She is intimately involved with the transition from the IDX system to Epic as registration and billing prepares to go live in February of 2013.

She and her staff of 20 analysts will be working behind the scenes with Epic project team members to ensure that data entry and retrieval is seamless for physicians. They are assisting with testing system functionality and interfaces from legacy systems. Most importantly, analysts are working diligently on implementing a second version of Precision BI that houses Epic data. This will ensure that users receive metrics from Epic that are comparable to what they currently receive from GE/IDX and Precision BI.

All of this can feel unsettling, especially considering the Epic project team will take over some of the group’s functions. Going forward, Gaddy’s team will mainly do reporting, and serve as a liaison between the practices and the Epic team, and probably take on new tasks. Some will serve as certified trainers for Yale Medical Group registration and billing staff. The analysts spoke with gratitude for Gaddy’s steady patience and constant support.

“She really likes to make people use their strengths,” said Gina Stover, a programmer analyst. “She has a very keen eye to understand your strengths, and she kind of directs you in the right path and gives you opportunities to stretch. I’m a process person and I like to understand the whole system. When I came on board, her attitude was, ‘So go out there and learn it.’ ”

Robert Biehler, manager of production systems, thanks Gaddy for sending him out of his comfort zone. “I’ve grown a lot under her,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t even realize until you’re right in the middle of something that you’ve changed,” he said.

Gaddy joined YMG in 2005 as a senior program analyst and moved up to decision support manager a year later. She was promoted to director a little more than a year ago, replacing Sharlene Seidman, who joined the Epic project team.

She grew up in Norwalk and began her career in technology at the age of 18 at Norwalk Hospital, scheduling appointments and transcribing dictation, which eventually led to analyzing and reporting outpatient psychiatric data to the state of Connecticut. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree in computer science from Hampton University, she worked for Aetna, the Hospital of St. Raphael and Southern Connecticut Gas Company.

While she was at the gas company, she completed a master’s in computer science at Sacred Heart University and was part of a large-scale software implementation similar in approach to the EPIC implementation at Yale.

“I love data,” she said. “I like helping people get information from the systems they are working with so they can do their jobs.”

While many people are concerned about how Epic will change their own work flow, Gaddy thinks about how her contributions to the EMR will impact people she doesn’t even know. “The system is a repository, but I also see it it as an octopus with a lot of arms. The head is where all of the knowledge and data is, and there are lots of tentacles drawing upon that information. The data has to be clean and correct, or a patient in an infusion chair may get the wrong thing,” she said.

Frederick Borrelli, associate chair and chief of administration in the Department of Surgery, said having such a devoted leader is critical to departments like his that rely heavily on data for management decision-making. “Her professional presence, her demeanor is very helpful,” he said. “She provides a sense of purpose and a sense of stability during a time of change.”

A resident of Bridgeport, Gaddy is busy most of the time, even when she’s not working. She is an active member of Friendship Baptist Church and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and spends almost every Saturday “giving back” to her community in mentoring activities, health fairs, canned food drives, blood drives and fundraising for scholarships. “My life is very full with all of those activities,” she said. She is a green belt in karate, and her daughter, who will be going to high school next year, is a brown belt. “We did that together,” Gaddy said.

Sometimes personal and professional lives spill into each other. When she gets too busy with either, Gaddy prioritizes. She’s learned over time that things usually work out, and she expects to see the same thing happen with the EMR.

“I say change is good. Some people embrace it, some people try to fight it, but it comes anyway. The best you can do is know what’s coming, prepare for it and move through it. I tell everyone that we’ll do the best we can to use this new tool to support the physicians and staff who are taking care of our patients,” Gaddy said.