EHR Strategy, What I Do & How I Can Improve Your Efforts

Several people have told me that I need to come right out and state the role I play in the Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) space, and how my consulting firm will add value to your efforts.  Spell out your services, and state a call to action.  This writing will address that topic, and will be the only time I use your time to try to sell you on me.  If you’ll bear with me for a few minutes, I will explain why I write with such self-assurance that most organizations (Hospitals, clinics, IPAs, and providers) have the wrong EHR Strategy—or no recognizable strategy—and my equally self-assured belief that working together we will mitigate that problem.

Here are the facts around EHR:

• Most large EHR projects have a high probability of failing—the larger the project, the higher the probability
• Large EHRs may cost more than a new hospital wing—a number of people know of one truly outstanding hospital who spent more than $300,000,000 on their EHR
• Hospitals are much more knowledgeable about the requirements of a hospital wing and what it will do for them than they are about their EHR strategy
• All healthcare providers who have entered the EHR space have done so trying to hit the trifecta of moving Gossamer targets;
  • Certification
  • Meaningful use
  • Interoperability
  • Hundreds of vendors who have their own agenda at heart
  • So many individual, disparate, committees are working on standards…do we need to even go there?  Doesn’t each committee create its own standards—if so, where is the standardization?
  • If one removes DC from the loop, many providers can’t articulate the business problem they want the EHR to solve, nor can they articulate an ROI
  • Providers have budgets without requirements, budgets without any knowledge of what an EHR system should cost
  • An EHR should have a greater impact on patients, providers, and payors than any other single program, yet who is in charge?  What skill set to they have to do this?
  • Most providers do not have a plan, a qualified planner, a decider.  Who is reviewing and approving the plan?  What makes them credible?

Those are the reasons we are here.  Our job is to reposition those facts such that they improve your chances of being successful with your EHR selection and implementation.

You know what?  It’s not about the EHR.  It never should be.  The EHR system only accounts for about 20% of the projects success or failure.  It’s code.  The other 80% comes down to planning, conversion, change management, training, user acceptance (patient, doctors, nurses, and administrators), and workflow improvement.

You know what?  It’s about breaking down kingdoms between intra-hospital departments.

It’s about knowing that you can walk into the EHR war room and know that somebody is the decider.  That somebody is able to say, “This is what we are going to do first, second, and third, because that’s the only way we can improve your chances of having a successful EHR program.

That’s what we do.  Most people, given the opportunity, will fail 100% of the time performing open-heart surgery.  A mere handful will avert failing.  Most people will fail 100% of the time who are leading an EHR program will fail.  A mere handful will not.

We are the ERHPMO (Program Management Office).  We are your advocate in managing the EHR vendor to benefit you.  Needless to say, most vendors do not like having us on board.  We are vendor neutral, provider advocates.

We are the anti-Accenture business model.  We do not back up the bus and drop off the children.  We will not try to put 30 people on your project.  You do that—clinicians, and IT.  We pull up in a Prius, drop off a few grownups who’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

We work hand in hand with Hospitals, IPAs, clinical providers, and doctors to help you successfully address some or all of the following;

• understand the EHR landscape
• create your EHR strategy, in-house versus SaaS
• eliminate wasteful redundant costs via shared services analyses
• define your requirements
• issue an RFP
• evaluate vendors
• negotiate contracts with the vendors
• plan and execute the change management
• rationalize your EHR with other which may exist within your walls
• define and rebuild workflows
• develop and execute a training program for user acceptance

This is not the time to experiment, or hope you get it right.  To minimize the probability of failure, this is the time to bring in the adults.

That’s what we do.  Sorry for the sales pitch.  Please let me know how we can help.

paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com