If you’re looking to add to the complexity you may want to follow in the footsteps of what some hospitals have done.  I don’t know if their approach was part of an overall strategy, or a result born out of necessity, one conscripted by the strictures of the self-imposed autonomy of the organization.  The only unifying element among the autonomous units is the brand.  The hospital executive I spoke with yesterday indicated that his hospital’s dilemma was the result of not having an EHR strategy.  Their radiology practice implemented an EHR, surgical another, oncology yet another, and so forth and so on.

By the time the hospital had decided to implement EHR they learned they already had five, none of which could be interconnected.  An interesting problem.  What did they do?  Having no choice, their only option was to construct an EHR capable of connecting the five EHRs—a mini Rhio.

Not having a plan added a lot of additional cost.  It left them without any standardized processes and without much of an ROI.  At least now they are considering a managed services approach to handle their duplicated functions like billing, payroll, and IT.

We’d kicked around the concept of having a national EHR czar; maybe we need to ensure that we first have an internal EHR czar.