Bobbie Byrne, MD, EVP & CIO, Edward-Elmhurst Health, Chapter 1

If you’re going to lead an organization through a merger, the one thing you can’t be afraid to do is step on few landmines, says Bobbie Byrne, who encountered several during the union that created Edward-Elmhurst Health three years ago. What leaders can do is to be sensitive of the differences that exist between cultures, and keep the lines of communication open. In this interview, she talks about how to navigate partnerships with competing organizations, how her own experience as a pediatrician factors into her rollout strategy, how getting people to think “Epic first can be both a blessing and a curse.” Byrne also discusses her new role, which is a reflection on the organization’s strong focus on consumer driven health, her thoughts on managing expectations, and what she considers to be the “most fun part” of her job.

Chapter 1



* Edward-Elmhurst Health’s formation in 2013

* Chicago’s “extremely competitive environment”

* Collaborative competition with DuPage Medical Group

* Partnering with physicians — “It’s part of our DNA.”

* Moving Elmhurst Hospital to Epic

* At-the-elbow support & specialized training

* “It’s time consuming, but it’s really worth it.”

* Pros and cons of “Epic first”



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Bold Statements

It’s really nice to be able to use everything we learned when we rolled out the first time — the things we did right and the things we did wrong, and then try and just do everything right with the follow-up hospital.

We knew going into this implementation that we really had to take Epic’s tools and push them as absolutely far as we could in order to meet the patient movement processes that had previously existed at Elmhurst.

The biggest piece is we now have a really experienced team. The first time we did this, we didn’t know what we didn’t know, so we sort of were fumbling a little bit in the dark with two hands out in front of us. Now after being live on Epic for over three years, you’ve made a lot of mistakes, and we’ve already corrected some of them. It just feels more confident.

I’m a pediatrician. I need very different things than my friend the cardiologist does from the system. So don’t teach me his things and don’t teach him my things. You have to prioritize it and say, ‘yes, this is going to be more expensive training, but we’re going to do it.’

The number one priority is always going to get done, regardless of the team that’s requesting it. That’s not a problem. It’s the number four, five and six priorities — how do these happen and which one gets prioritized higher? I actually haven’t talked to another CIO who has this system nailed.

Gamble:  Hi Bobbie, thank you so much for taking some time to speak with us today.

Byrne:  Good morning, Kate, happy to talk to you.

Gamble:  If you could just start off by giving an overview of Edward-Elmhurst Health, what you have in terms of hospitals, ambulatory care, things like that, and where you’re located.

Byrne:  Edward-Elmhurst Health is a system that was put together from a merger of Edward Health and Elmhurst Health. We did a merger about three years ago where the two Edward hospitals combined with the one Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, so now we have three hospitals. We have probably about 60 or more ambulatory locations and a pretty large medical staff as well as a large employed and affiliated physician base.

We’re located in DuPage County, which is outside of Chicago. We have a little bit of a unique situation in our area that there is an independent multi-specialty group called DuPage Medical Group, which actually is now at about 600 physicians, so really a very good sized medical group. We work very collaboratively with them, including sharing an instance of Epic with them....