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Avery Marshall

Dr. Berkowsky

HLTH-302 Introduction to Healthcare Informatics

30-October-2022

EHR implementation in Ventura County

Ventura County HealthCare Agency in 2013 attempted to implement a new EHR

program for health care providers. This EHR was run by Cerner and the go live date

was July 2013. The money paid to Cerner by the VCHCA was “$50 million-plus

transition to electronic health records at Ventura County-run hospitals and clinics” as

well as “paying $19 million more over 10 years to Cerner for monitoring and operating

the system” (Kilkenny, 2015). Unfortunately the roll out of this new EHR program was

widely unsuccessful in the initial year and following years. Unfortunately when looking

back on what occurred we can see that the initial roll out was a failure. The primary

reason for this was an initial lack of planning, preparation, and training. What was found

was that “[a] grand jury investigation found the county neglected to plan, hire and

adequately train for the transition” (Monegain, 2014). In addition, the investigation also

found that “failed to procure laptops and servers in a timely way” (Monegain, 2014).

Furthermore, the VCHCA also “significantly [underestimated] the total number of

simultaneous users the EHR system had to accommodate, and it lacked a dedicated

and experienced project manager to oversee, track and report all tasks” (Monegain,

2014). From this we can see that this EHR implementation was doomed from the start

due to lack of planning. By not allowing for proper education of staff on the transition,
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providing proper equipment, not having dedicated management, and underestimating

use all lead to the failure of implementation.

Another factor in why the initial implementation of this EHR was a failure is that

for some providers it simply did not work. An example of this is that “[t]he grand jury said

system instability after implementation, including frequent crashes” which led to “health

care staff temporarily administered care without access to recent records or relied on

paper documents” (Kilkenny, 2015). Another example of the EHR not functioning were

issues related to medication which“took nine months to solve prescription-label issues

that meant some staff members didn’t have needed information” (Kilkenny, 2015). From

these examples we can see that a program that is meant to allow for easier access to

patient records and streamline healthcare ultimately led to more work for providers.

Without these records as well there is also the risk of potential error when administering

medications among other treatments.

From these examples of the issues with rollout of the EHR program as well as

the related issues with using the program it can be seen how this was a failure. The

issues ranging from not having sufficient staffing, lack of coordination, and lack of

training led to this initial rollout being a failure. From this it led to issues with the

program itself and the related issues faced by healthcare providers. Overall when one

looks at these issues the conclusion can be drawn that the initial implementation of this

EHR program was a failure.

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References:

Kisken, T. (2021, April 23). Electronic Health Records come under fire in Ventura

County, Calif.. GovTech. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from

https://www.govtech.com/dc/articles/electronic-health-records-come-under-fire-in-

ventura-county-calif.html

Monegain, B. (2014, June 6). The tale of one county's botched EHR rollout.

Healthcare IT News. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/tale-one-countys-botched-its-ehr-rollout