Williams Medical Service (WMS) is a community hospital that has a captive professional corporation that ultimately reports to the hospital's governing board. However,   day-to-day operations are governed by the WMS board. Two years ago, the  professional corporation was given a budget for purchasing and implementing an Electronic Health Record. After a two-year delay the WMS physicians are now anxious to acquire an EHR system. They have begun investigating systems but have not involved the hospital CEO or IT staff. The CEO is concerned about the disconnect in the EHR acquisition process. 

WMS has its own board made up of representative of the employed physicians. The WMS board nominations for members and officers are subject to the approval of the medical center board. The capital and operating budgets of WMS are reviewed and approved during the Leonard Williams Medical Center (LWMC) budget process. The WMS board is responsible for governing the day-to-day operations of the group. LWMC serves a population of approx. 215,000. There are five other hospitals in the region. One of these, aligned with a large clinic is viewed as the primary competitor. In more recent years fiscal year, LWMC had an operating margin of0.4 percent. LWMC has $40 million in investments and has a long-term debt-to-equity ratio of 25 percent (Wager, 2017).

The physicians have ignored the CEO’s technical and integration advice and requirements during their EHR search. 

    

What is your assessment of this situation? What are the physician group's possible reasons for deciding to proceed on an independent path? If you were the CEO, what steps would you take to bring the hospital and physician group IT plans back into alignment? Should the EHR effort proceed or wait until the CPOE initiative is complete? Should you require that both systems come from the same vendor? Explain your rationale. The LWMC board is concerned that the physicians are being naive about the challenges of EHR implementation, have established no mmeasurable goals for the system, and have only weak incentives to make the iimplementation successful. How would you address these concerns?

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