EHR Game Changer Focuses on Taking Invisible Path to Change

Four years ago, before Ed Ricks came aboard as CIO and vice president of information services at Beaufort (S.C.) Memorial Hospital, the hospital had tried rolling out a computerized physician order entry system in its emergency department. One of the first things Ricks heard when he started his new job was that, by all accounts, the rollout was a monumental failure. "They wanted to do it for all the right reasons, but the reason it failed so badly was that they didn't listen to physicians-there were unnecessary clicks, it wasn't easy to use and it created a bad workflow. Not a great experience for anyone."