EHR certification inspectors will swarm hospitals like fifty-year-old women to a Celine Dion concert.

Why is certification a part of the overall plan?  Is this planned failure?  Do they have reason to believe that a certain percentage of EHRs will fail certification?

Of course they do.

Let’s describe two failure types; certification and Full test.  The certification test, by definition, is necessary.  The Full test is both necessary and sufficient.  It is possible to pass certification without passing the Full test.  Therefore, the Full test is a stricter test.  Build out to pass the Full test, and by default, one should pass the Certification test.

What is the full test?  Same as always.  Fully functional, on time, within budget, and user accepted.  Functional, for purposes of this discussion includes updated workflows, change management, and interoperability, and a slew of other deliverables.

Here’s what can be concluded just based on the facts.

Fact:  One-third to two-thirds of EHRs are listed as having failed—this statistic will get smaller over time.

Opinion:  The reason the failure rate will get smaller is that the failure rate will be artificially diluted by a large number of successful small-sized implementations.  Large implementations, those have far-reaching footprints for their outpatient doctors, Rhios, and other interfaces requiring interoperability will continue to fail if their PMO is driving for certification.  (Feel free to add meaningful use to the narrative, it doesn’t change the result.)

Fact:  Most large, complex, expensive IT projects fail—they just do.  This statistic has remained constant for years, and it is higher than the percentage of EHR projects that have failed.  Even a fairly high percentage of those projects which set out to pass the Full test.

Opinion:  Failure rate for large EHR projects—let’s say those above $10,000,000 (if you don’t like that number, pick your own)—as measured by the Full test, will fail at or above the rate for non-EHR IT projects.)

Bleak?  You bet.  Insurmountable?  Doesn’t have to be.

What can you do to improve your chances of success?  Find, hire, invent a killer PMO executive out of whole cloth who knows the EHR Fail Safe Points.  EHR Fail Safe Points?  The points, which if crossed unsuccessfully, place serious doubt about the project’s ability to pass the Full test.  The points which will cause success factors to be redefined, and cause one or more big requirements—time, budget, functionality—to be sacrificed.

This person need not and perhaps should not be the CMIO, the CIO, or an MD.  They need not have a slew of EHR implementation merit badges.  The people who led the Skunk Works had had zero experience managing the types of planes and rockets they built.  They were leaders, they were idea people, they were people who knew how to choose among many alternatives and would not be trapped between two.

The person need not be extremely conversant in the technical or functional intricacies of EMR.  Those skills are needed—in spades—and you need to budget for them.  The person you are looking for must be able to look you in the eye and convince you that they can do this; that they can lead, that these projects are their raison d’etre.  They will ride heard over the requirements, the selection process, the vendors, the users, and the various teams that comprise the PMO.