There are quite a number of hospitals that have embarked on health IT projects years ago, and they have a big advantage over those hospitals that are just now building their roadmap for the implementation and adoption of EMRs and EHRs.
The journey is long and difficult. Everyone's experience is different, although common themes emerge. It's always helpful to look at those early adopters and seek out what they have done right. After all, if you're on the late train to meaningful use, you might as well learn from others and try to avoid time- and resource-consuming mistakes.
Some of the hospitals that deserve to be highlighted are in Pennsylvania.
Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center has spent more than $100 million and 10 years putting together its health IT systems. Forget that the amount of money and time is eye popping. Leaders at the center have focused on designing systems and processes that will provide the best possible patient care and not on mere implementation of health IT systems. If you do that, you're likely to keep on the path of designing a health IT system that is truly adopted and sustains itself.
Holy Spirit Health System in Camp Hill, Penn., has spent $20 million over a number of years upgrading its EHR. The hospital system has been able to quantify its benefits in quality care and efficiency. Officials there said it's still difficult to get some physicians to change their habits, such as handwriting orders, but the more evidence you can present on the benefits of EHRs may sway those hardliners. Also, getting existing users to be physician champions might also help drive adoption.
Pinnacle Health System exerted energy enlisting affiliated physicians to be members of its health information exchange. Once it reached a critical mass of 300 physicians, physicians came to them. The takeaway here is to create a recruitment plan that clearly shows what the benefits are to physicians and spend time strategically building that membership.
The bottom line is that these hospitals undertook these health IT initiatives long before ARRA and the HITECH Act were ever conceived. It speaks to the trend that implementing and adopting health IT is a cost of doing business in this industry.
If your hospital or healthcare system has lessons learned or best practices to share, by all means, share them here.
Photo by Edgar Zuniga Jr. obtained via Creative Commons license.
