Health IT Reality Check

It's not as funny as David Letterman's Top 10 lists, but a catalog of signs that your electronic health record implementation might be in trouble could make you think -- and maybe act -- before it's too late.

The list, published online recently by Becker's Hospital Review, comes from Dave Vreeland, a partner at Cumberland Consulting Group of Franklin, Tenn., a health IT project management firm. If providers can't answer a majority of the questions in the affirmative, he says, their implementation project could be in trouble.

The Top 10 questions are:

1. Is the implementation a top organizational priority rather than one of many priorities?
2. Is the project "owned" by clinical and operational people rather than an IT-only project?
3. Is a defined project director leading implementation?
4. Are top executives heavily involved?
5. Are clinicians heavily involved?
6. Have a project charter, project plan, communication plan, clinician-adoption and change-management plan, project governance organizational chart and project team organizational chart all been developed and documented?
7. Is a written status report produced every two weeks?
8. Is there regular discussion about how and when to implement EHR-related mandates and changes to medical staff bylaws?
9. Has the organization articulated the three main reasons for the implementation?
10. Is measurable progress made each month?

If you answered "no" to five or more questions, might we suggest a dose of Letterman? A little levity might be just what the doctor ordered.