BCA streamlines Texas inmate health care
Electronic Medical Records are one of the fastest growing fields in information technology, due to the $48 billion investment by the Obama administration, and a fertile area for the 31,000 African-American-owned information technology companies.
Albert Woodard, CEO of BCA, is among the selectees to the 12th annual 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology.
Despite the fact that Texas has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country and health care costs to inmates are rapidly increasing nationally, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was able to use the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) to reign in expenses while streamlining inmate care.
BCA created a statewide Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system paired with the world’s largest telemedicine system outside of the Pentagon.
A 2004 Texas Medical Foundation audit found that the Texas EMR system contributed to improved health outcomes while significantly lowering patient cost per day. “BCA’s EMR coupled with UTMB’s and Texas Tech’s telemedicine services have helped UTMB and Texas Tech provide improved access to specialists, continuity of care, and follow-up care while decreasing costs,” says Michael J. Bourdeau, Director of Correctional Managed Care (CMC) Information Systems, UTMB.
In 1976 the U.S. Supreme Court (Estelle vs. Gamble) established a constitutional standard for inmate healthcare guaranteeing a prison inmate’s medical treatment thus making prison inmates the only Americans with a right to health care. To do otherwise, the high court said, would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
In addition, a recent Supreme Court decision that ordered California to release tens of thousands of prison inmates has put pressure on many state prison systems. But Texas may be a step ahead of that judicial bullet due to its pioneering health care IT prison program.
The California decision represents one of the largest prison releases in U.S. history and was driven, the court majority said, by “overcrowding, which has caused suffering and death.” A federal overseer said earlier that California’s prison system should consider freeing the sickest inmates to cut costs. California has two years to implement the court order.
Texas’ system is recognized as being the second highest provider in quality healthcare in a correctional setting, second only to US government hospitals. The Texas system has also been called a national model for the way it taps into university resources with oversight from a state committee controlled by doctors.
The BCA EMR system is used across the board by UTMB and Texas Tech which provide the medical care in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison system. The system is used in providing medical, dental, mental health and pharmacy services not only in the state prisons, but also in county jails and the Texas Youth Commission (TYC).
The statewide system serves some 120 state, 15 youth and three federal prisons and has been recognized for helping the state of Texas recognize a 45 percent reduction in medical tests deemed to be unnecessary. A past study indicated the program has resulted in a 70 percent reduction in the number of transfers from prison facilities to physician offices and a 38 percent reduction in transfers from inmate housing to emergency rooms says Bourdeau.
The Texas adult inmate population currently stands at approximately 150,000 inmates and costs the state of Texas excess of $3 billion a year to operate. The BCA EMR system covers 145 locations and handles 19 million interactions a month.
As a result of the EMR program Bourdeau says the inmate medical cost per day compared to other states has been drastically reduced to $9.67.This compares to $41.25 for California, the only state with a higher incarceration rate than Texas. The BCA EMR system has proven to work effectively in one of the country’s largest prison systems, he says.
A joint U.S. Department of Justice-U.S. Department of Defense Joint Program Steering Group Report concluded in a cost-benefit analysis that a telemedicine consultation would cost an average of $71 compared to $175 for a conventional face-to-face consultation – a 60 percent savings.
States are increasingly turning to IT solutions as they anticipate health care expenditures to continue to increase rapidly as prison populations continue to swell. This is due to aging, tougher sentencing laws, longer prison sentences, as well as increases in chronic illnesses diabetes and heart disease, infectious diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis and mentally ill and homeless patients being housed in prisons and jails.
From 1988 to 1998 the US prison population doubled according to the U.S. Justice Department making the U.S. the number one incarcerator worldwide. In 1978 the U.S. inmate population was approximately 750,000 people. Today that number is reported to be in excess of over 2.3 million individuals.
BCA is a leading provider of Information Technology (IT) products and services to the Healthcare Industry and Public Health Infrastructure in the United States. It is reported to be one of the largest minority owned software companies in the country.
Born in Summit, Tennessee in the Chattanooga metropolitan area, Woodard graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) where he received a bachelor’s of science degree in engineering.He later earned a master’s of business administration degree (MBA) from Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta.Following graduation from UTC Woodard joined IBM as a system engineer where he designed, developed, deployed and supported computer systems for several large and medium size businesses in a variety of industries. While implementing and supporting computer systems in hospitals and insurance companies at IBM he was exposed to the positive impact information technology could have in the healthcare industry.
In 1977 Woodard, together with two of his college classmates, left IBM and founded BCA in Chattanooga. Not long after its creation the company was recognized as one of the fastest growing small businesses in the South, winning awards locally, regionally and nationally. Woodard along with several other BCA principles were also recognized for providing outstanding leadership in their roles as entrepreneurs, employers and managers.
A variety of high-profile community-related volunteer positions, combined with assembling a group of Chattanooga area African-American leaders to acquire, build and successfully operate three of the first black owned radio stations in the Chattanooga area, generated other local honors.
These included one by UTC in 1984 that recognized him as the most outstanding alumni that year.It was the first time any graduate had received the award within 10 years of graduation.
In the late 1980s as a member of the board of directors of Erlanger Medical Center -- one of the South’s largest hospitals at the time – Woodard helped develop and implement the hospital’s data processing strategic plan resulting in the successful implementation of advanced multimillion dollar computer systems. As a member of Erlanger’s finance committee he also developed the hospital’s women and minority purchasing and hiring policies, resulting in close to a 10 million dollar increase in hospital purchases from women and minority vendors.
This sparked the fastest rate of growth of women and minority businesses in the county’s history and resulted in major increases in the hiring of minorities and women in upper and mid level management and clinical support personnel.
Woodard’s experiences with Erlanger reignited the concepts he witnessed at IBM and inspired him to use his leadership skills and BCA’s resources to merge IT and healthcare to more efficiently provide quality medical care.
He changed BCA’s focus from a general IT organization to one exclusively supporting the healthcare industry. And in 1986 to gain access to better transportation and a growing national customer base he moved the company’s headquarters from Chattanooga to Atlanta.
By 1990 BCA had become recognized nationally as a leading provider of healthcare IT products and services and began deploying technology into many of the country’s public and private healthcare providers.
The company’s activities were recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and by mid 1990 the CDC and BCA began what would become a 15 year relationship which continues today and that was just renewed for another 10 years.It was a result of this relationship that enabled BCA to expand its business further within the federal government providing IT products and services to the US Department of Defense Military Health System and the US Department of Health and Human Services and National Institute of Health.
Under Woodard’s leadership BCA deployed one of the Country’s first Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems and built the World’s largest telemedicine system outside the US Department of Defense’s military EMR. BCA also became a major provider of health IT products and services to Atlanta’s Grady Hospital System, several federally qualified community health centers and a number of large private practices.
BCA continues to invest heavily in Georgia, building a highly secured data center in Dalton, GA and expanding its Research and Development Center in Atlanta.
Woodard continues to volunteer his time, currently serving on the Board of Directors of Genesis Shelters in Atlanta, whose mission is to provide temporary shelter and transition support to homeless families. He also serves on the Board of Director of several other small business enterprises in and around the Atlanta area.
