Research and Training on Healthcare Analytics & Leadership
Healthcare is undergoing a period of tremendous change, and while EHRs have gotten a great deal of attention, lately, the implementation of an EHR is only the first step in a long journey to becoming a data-enabled healthcare organization.
by J. Bryan Bennett
We recently learned of another C-level executive resigning over a failed or challenged EHR implementation (CEO of Georgia Hospital Resigns After Rocky EHR Implementation). These stories are beginning to come with increased frequency as most healthcare organizations are deep into their EHR implementation cycle. If you look closely, the reasons are almost always the same, i.e., lack of physician engagement, difficult implementation time frames or lack of the proper resources. When I read these stories, I usually come to one primary reason for the failure – bad leadership in two distinct areas.
The Root Cause of Many EHR Implementation Failures is Bad Leadership
I’m sure there’s a lot of blame to go around on why this implementation went wrong. I’ve found the bottom line comes down to leadership or lack thereof. It doesn’t matter which solution you’re implementing, if the plan has gaps, it’s going to fail. I said the very same thing several months ago in one of my HIMSS Future Care blogs: “Leadership Skills Needed for a Successful Data Enablement Transformation“. @enabledhealth