Blame the EMR 🤔

I have seen this type of stories on a regular basis and it is starting to feel like groundhogs day. The theme of the story is an organization makes a decision to have an EMR implementation. Post go live, the organization has a drop in revenue and the reason for the revenue decline is the EMR system change. When this situation happens, people look for a scapegoat and the majority of the time the blame is on the CIO who is leading the effort. This is where the trouble lies because a project like this is an enterprise effort. Revenue decline can be the result of various reasons like missing order entry, missing charge capture, bad collection process, and also bad system design builds. But to put the blame for the revenue decline just on the system conversion is a bad excuse.

The flip side of the story is what happens after an implementation when the revenue exceeds the expectations? Was it also the success of just the CIO's effort or is every leader jumping on the bandwagon claiming that they were part of the effort. I would love to hear your comments as this was written after reading about the news below this morning.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center points to Epic rollout for 68% drop in operating income https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/vanderbilt-university-medical-center-points-to-epic-rollout-for-68-drop-in-operating-income-082918.html