Bill Bishop, CIO, Colquitt Regional Medical Center, Chapter 2

It takes a certain personality type to be able to walk into an organization and start making changes right away. When Bill Bishop took on the role of CIO at Colquitt Regional Medical Center, he knew that there were “antiquated processes” that needed to be revamped — and that there was going to be some resistance, but he didn’t let that stop him. And although he lost a few people with his “double-edge approach” of pushing for improvements while also being transparent, the core group remained largely in place, and is now working toward becoming an integrated system.

In this interview, Bishop talks about the strategy his team used to implement Meditech 6.1 in the hospital — and how they’ll tweak it to roll it out in the clinics; why he believes engagement from both physicians and nurses is paramount to a project’s success; and how his past life in product development provided him with insights into the vendor world.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Pushing portals through word-of-mouth

* Using consultants “as an extension of our staff.”

* Coming to Colquitt: “It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

* His approach as the new CIO – “I’m not scared to make changes.”

* Importance of open communication

* Cutting transcription costs with Dragon

* Past life on the vendor side: “It gave me insight.”



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Bold Statements

My IT staff really likes the new platform better — it’s easier to support it. For the people that were accustomed to what I call the green screen environment, it was a little bit of a transition because they were used to buttons being in the same place every day.

We didn’t want to ramp up and then have to cut staff, so we got a consulting firm to help us with training and help us with building, and they really served just as an extension of our staff.

There were some very antiquated processes. There were a lot of things that were just not running efficiently. So I approached it first with a lot of changes — you push and push and push, and when employees are hitting their breaking point, you try to roll in and mesh with the environment. It worked well.

A lot of times I will say no, but I do listen, and I encourage my managers to listen and to really foster a good relationship with their employees, because most of these people are here for the long haul, and I want people to enjoy coming to work.

Having that vendor experience and the programming experience to know what is possible with some systems and what’s not possible and be able to tell people realistically ‘you can’t make the system do that,’ has been really effective for me, every step of the way.

Gamble:  It’s interesting that you the word ‘push,’ because when you’re talking certain populations, it does seem like health systems are having to push patients toward a portal when they don’t necessarily want to go there. And there’s not one way to do this; patients can have so many different preferences and needs.

Bishop:  It’s tough. One strategy is we really encourage our employees to use the patient portal, and we encourage the employees to talk about it with their family and with other people they speak with. In a rural community, it’s a pretty good strategy. The day before yesterday, I had some lab work done, and yesterday I pulled it up online and saw what the results were, which would normally take a few days for the doctor to call them in. And so we really try to explain that you can get the information very quickly — within 48 hours — if you’re willing to sign up for our portal.

Gamble:  Right. Earlier,