David Bensema, MD, CIO, Baptist Health, Chapter 2

As an internal medicine physician, one of the most important lessons David Bensema learned was that if he was going truly engage with a patient, he first needed to establish trust. As CIO, he employs that same strategy to engage with physicians — something that doesn’t always come easy, even for an MD. In this interview, Bensema talks about what has surprised him most during his first year as CIO; the tough part when it comes to creating a task force of the “best and brightest”; and the strategy his team is using to roll out Epic across 7 hospitals. He also discusses why he doesn’t like the word ‘optimization,’ how he keeps the end user’s needs as top priority, and the one thing that needs to change when it comes to CIOs and project planning.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Leading EHR selection process as CMIO

* Heavy physician representation

* “Lean” 175-person Epic team

* Frustration with poaching — “It’s keeping that vision in front of myself and helping others see it.”

* Epic rollout: “Operationally led, IT supported”

* Challenges with clinical summaries

* Broadband Internet — “We are struggling as a state.”



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Bold Statements

We needed to get on a unified system. We needed to get away from the incredible disparity that we had in our system, and we needed a partner that was going to be able to grow with us.

We took a lot of highly experienced people from within our system. We had tremendous support from our leadership — that doesn’t mean we didn’t cause pain and we didn’t cause angst.

I know there’s something great coming. It’s keeping that vision in front of myself and helping others see that vision.

They were brought on because of their personal technical expertise, and also because they had been identified as somebody within the system who could get their head up and function as a CEO and take that broader view.

The 50 percent mark is a tough one to keep up. Getting everyone to focus for three months was one thing; getting everyone to do it as every patient, every time is still a lift.

Gamble:  In terms of the selection process, this was a few months after took on the CMIO role, so I wanted to talk about what that process was like. First of all, the way things happened, was it outlined that this was going to happen right away and it was going to be a significant part of your role?

Bensema:  No. I live the true IT life. Most things come by surprise. When I took on the CMIO role I was being brought on because obviously Meaningful Use was becoming an increasingly heavy lift. I was asked to help with physician engagement and with development of additional order sets and I-forms within our existing EHR to help our hospitals achieve Meaningful Use targets, and so I came in with that in mind. One month later, our CIO left the position and we had an interim appointed. A month after that we’d had a review from an outside consulting group and they pointed out what was obvious, which was that we needed to get on a unified system. We needed to get away from the incredible disparity that we had in our system, and we needed a partner that was going to be able to grow with us.

And so we started a search process in early October of 2013, and I was privileged to have the opportunity to help put that group together. I was also privileged that I was given a lot of leeway. Mr. [Stephen] Hanson, our CEO, the board and the leadership of Baptist Health all allowed me a lot of opportunity to put together a task force in a way that reflected my heart as a physician. I was also a nursing assistant in 1980-1981, so I have a heart for that whole spectrum of bedsid...