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One health system managed its organizationwide patient health data exchange by first gaining input from clinicians and working cooperatively with competitors.
Implementation of an electronic health record (EHR) system is a long and challenging (yet ultimately valuable) process. Although health systems have been slow to implement EHRs, the significant financial incentives being offered by the federal government- in the form of $3o billion in stimulus funds to support hospital implementations over the next several years- are rapidly shifting the EHR from an optional improvement to a near-mandatory initiative.
Fifteen years ago, PeaceHealth envisioned implementing a comprehensive community health record to collect and share patient information with providers inside and outside its health system, including competitors. The goal was not merely to streamline processes, but also to improve patient safety and quality of care. Today, PeaceHealth has 2 million patient records in its database that are accessible to more than 20,000 care providers and staff, and the health system has earned high marks from independent evaluators for the quality and safety of the care it delivers.
The lessons PeaceHealth learned regarding how to overcome barriers to EHR adoption- and how to successfully engage physicians and clinicians in this initiative- could help other organizations achieve success in their EHR implementations.
Assessing the Situation
At PeaceHealth- a multistate health system with seven hospitals and dozens of medical groups and healthcare joint ventures in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon- we have long embraced a philosophy of leveraging our considerable IT investments to improve decision making, lower costs, and improve outcomes. As a result, the EHR has played a central role in our organization for many years.
Our EHR strategy was founded in the early 1990s when our governing board charged us with deploying healthcare IT to pursue our overarching mission: safe, evidence-based, and compassionate care- every time and every touch. Our goal for EHR implementation was to seamlessly deliver high-quality patient care across the PeaceHealth continuum, from the hospitals and clinics to the homes of our patients in the communities we seive. We recognized that accomplishing this goal would require a sophisticated IT infrastructure and an EHR that would reach our entire community. The challenge was how to secure buy- in from hospital physicians and clinicians for a project...