I hate to fail, don't you? Failure hurts. It hurts in lots of ways; pride, self-esteem, ego, financial.

Financial. Yes, in business, failure is almost always accompanied by financial loss ... the icing on the failure cake. Sometimes the financial hit is minimal, other times it's a whopper.

The failure of an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system deployment is definitely in the "whopper" category of financial failure cake icing ... a sugar rush of epic proportions.

EHR failures are not uncommon. Depending on whose statistics you listen to, EHR deployments result in a 50%-80% failure rate. I don't know about you, but to me that's a staggering number. To undertake an endeavor with a price tag of between $60,000 - $100,000 and face a greater than even chance of failure as the outcome would scare the average business person to death.

Picture one-hundred thousand dollar bills in a big pile. Now imagine pouring gasoline on that pile of hard-earned money and then lighting it on fire. Wow, what a rush! A $100,000 bonfire. What would that look like? And how would it feel to watch $100k of your money burn to worthless ashes?

What's the cause for this spectacular failure rate? There are many, but three reasons for failure consistently rise to the top; lack of deployment project management, insufficient training and an inadequate Information Technology foundation upon which the EHR deployment rests.

In the usual EHR deployment scenario, the EHR sales rep makes his pitch, does a whiz-bang demo showing all the cool features of his company's software and the sale is made. That's when the trouble starts. Who's going to do the work leading to a successful EHR deployment? Usually it's an office staff member ... most often the already overworked office/practice manager. These folks have a lot on their plate, and the pile just got higher. Lacking the dedicated focus of a person responsible for the EHR deployment, and equipped with the time and knowledge to get it done right, the project most often languishes until it's declared a failure. Then someone pulls the plug ... and lights the bonfire.

All is not lost. There's a good-news side to this story, and it begins with you viewing our current on-demand webinar, "The Sharks Are In The Water ... Are You Ready To Swim?" This is a fast-paced look at issues that often lead to failure or success with the EHR deployment process. View the webinar, and then talk to The ITeam. We can help you avoid the $100,000 failed EHR bonfire! - Larry