Part 2 of a series exploring providers' decisions to change EHR vendors.
By the middle of 2012, Beebe Healthcare in Lewes, Del., was ready to switch EHR vendors.
"We had a lot of functionality issues," says Jeffrey E. Hawtof, MD, vice president of medical operations and informatics at Beebe. The EHR was often difficult to use, hard to modify because many of the servers were offsite and did not contain some of the features necessary to attest to meaningful use.
"So we either needed to stick with the current vendor and add computerized physician order entry and documentation and make it work, knowing we were having these issues, or decide this was the right time to move," says Dr. Hawtof. After consideration, health system officials decided to look for a new vendor. "We decided we wanted a vendor that would help us get to the next level," he says.
Beebe officials issued a request for proposals and recruited a consulting firm to help narrow down potential vendors. The final three vendors were invited to Beebe for a week to meet with staff, clinicians and executives and demonstrate their projects. Staff and clinicians were then asked to rank the systems to narrow the selection down to two vendors, and then hospital officials put it out for a bid.
Cost was an important factor in the final decision. But so was finding a vendor that would be a partner to the small community health system, and one that would be able to get the EHR up and running in time for the health system to attest to meaningful use stage 1, says Michael J. Maksymow, CIO and vice president of information systems at Beebe Healthcare.
Cerner committed to the March 9, 2014 go-live date and also impressed Beebe officials by beginning work with the health system before the contract was signed, signaling Cerner was the partner Beebe was looking for. "They were so committed, they invested time with us beforehand and then spent all of 2013 building out the system for the March go-live," says Dr. Hawtof.
The EHR went live right on schedule and helped Beebe meet meaningful use stage 1. Additionally, the health system, which had been at stage 3 on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model with its previous EHR system, was recognized as a stage 6 hospital in September.
For other hospitals or health systems considering switching EHR vendors, Dr. Hawtof recommends remembering EHR systems are not out-of-the-box solutions. "EHR systems are not the definition of usability — it takes work to make them usable and you have to have that vendor partnership to do that," he says. If that level of vendor commitment isn't there, it may be time to switch, he says. However, he says hospitals and health systems considering leaving their vendor should look at how other organizations running that system are doing: "If your vendor is making it work in other instances you may not need to change," he says.
Mr. Maksymow says it's important to remember the cost of switching EHR vendors will extend beyond capital outlays to consume many other resources, from manpower to time. "A rip and replace... means many other things will be put on hold while attention and resources are given to this change," he says.
More articles on Cerner:
How Cerner will integrate with HealthKit
Intermountain joins Cerner's bid to replace the DoD's EHR
Cerner, athenahealth integrating with HealthKit