In May 2013, a $31 million system-wide EHR (Electronic Health Records) rollout failed due to poor management and unreliable implementation plans.  Clinicians were angered because they weren’t including in the planning, and they made their complaints known.  This resulted in the immediate resignation by Athens Regional’s CEO and CIO.

So who’s to blame?  Fingers are pointing at Athens Regional’s IT Team.  Their Chief Medical Officer (CMO) reported that information wasn’t shared between the CIO, IT Team and clinicians, and this resulted in the problems that occurred.  Apparently, sometimes the new Cerner EHR system worked, other times it didn’t.

According to Cerner’s VP, successful EHR implementations are “clinically driven, not IT driven.”  Users should have been involved in the strategic decision-making before the system was rolled out.

Athens Regional’s CMO has now taken the lead on the implementation.  In the meantime, a lot of finger pointing is still going on.

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