 | EHR Governance: A Practical Guide to User Centric, Consensus Driven Optimization Subjects: Computer Science; Economics Finance Business & Industry; Management of IT; Business Management and Accounting; Management of Technology & Innovation; Public & Nonprofit Management; Organizations spend large amounts of money to purchase, deploy and optimize their EHRs. They are not plug-n-play systems. This requires commitment to an ongoing improvement cycle that, when done well, responds to the people and process as well as the platform. When not done well, could result in complete failure of the system costing the organization thousands of dollars. In early 2014 the User Experience Team (UXP) of a large health system was invited to reorganize the Organization's EHR Governance. This request came on the heels of provider complaints about slow change request turn-around-time, low throughput and poor process transparency. At that time, approximately 60 change request were being released into the live environment on a quarterly basis and it was not uncommon for a change request to take over a year from the time it was submitted to the time it was finally seen by the end user within the EHR. This was compounded by a lack of tools for tracking a change request's lifecycle. This resulted in provider apathy and a pervasive sentiment that EHR Governance was a black hole. That core User Experience Team, who make up the author team for this book is comprised of key stakeholders who manage EHR governance processes end-to-end on a daily basis. Their foundational premise has always been that governance done right speeds up change and leads to a positive User Experience. This book is structured to be practical and pragmatic. It begins with how to articulate a clear vision to organizational leaders so they can champion strong EHR governance both theoretically and financially. The book concludes with a commitment to ongoing improvement and refinement - Governing Governance. Based on more than 5 years of ongoing refinement, this book shares processes that can scale to small and large organizations alike. It also calls out critical lessons learned to help the reader avoid the same mistakes and achieve measurable improvement more rapidly. Paula Scariati, DO, MPH, MS, is a physician strategist specializing in tech-enabled healthcare. With more than 25 years of experience in government, academic, private, and nonprofit organizations, Paula's approach to digital transformation leverages her unique expertise in medical informatics, governance, and change management. Throughout her career, she's partnered with high-performing, multi-functional teams in fast-paced environments to develop innovative apps, lead EHR go lives, optimize workflows, and map improvement processes. Paula's work is data driven and at the heart of everything she does is an unrelenting commitment to user experience. Her skills span the continuum of care using software tools from Allscripts, McKesson, Meditech, Cerner, and Epic, along with ADT, CDI, population health and best of breed platforms "I love the challenge of reducing the friction between physicians and their software. This work of humanizing technology allows me to combine innovative applications with design thinking to create solutions that re-imagine the physician-patient relationship." Dr. Scariati is a seasoned national speaker, an award-winning medical school instructor, and an ASQ Lean Six Sigma Green Belt who has authored over 100 articles including 14 peer review publications. In her free time Paula is an HGTV enthusiast and enjoys the challenge of splitting her own firewood. She can be reached for a curbside consult or a more formal engagement at Paula.Scariati@uxphysician.com. |
