Q&A with Baptist Health CAO Stacey Johnston, Part 2: “I’m Trying to Make It as Easy as Possible.”

Of the many components needed to ensure a successful EHR implementation, one of the most important — and least recognized — is grace, according to Stacey Johnston, MD. As Chief Applications Officer and Epic Program Executive at Baptist Health, which recently marked a major milestone, she often reminds her teams to be patient with each other and themselves. This particularly holds true for those who have been pulled away from their everyday roles to serve as analysts. “You’re not going to be perfect,” she said during a podcast interview with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor at healthsystemCIO. “It’s a new skill you’re learning that will continue to improve over time.”

During the interview, she talked Baptist Health’s Epic journey — what they’ve done so far and what they need to do going forward, and what she considers to be the most important components of any major initiative.

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Key Takeaways



* Despite being cautioned by Epic to decrease the size of its work groups, Baptist Health stayed the course. The result was more participation and a “really transparent implementation.”

* Baptist did adhere to Epic’s philosophy of empowering those who use the system to make decisions regarding the build and workflows, which can both increase efficiencies and boost long-term adoption.

* “People are experiencing compassion fatigue; I’ve seen it firsthand working with providers,” Johnston said. By focusing on individual workflows, leaders can better understand where users are getting stuck, “and try to make it a little bit better.”

* The role of the applications officer has evolved significantly over the years. Whereas in the beginning it focused more on implementations, now “it’s more about data sharing, workflow enhancements, and optimization.”





Q&A with Stacey Johnston, MD, CAO, Baptist Health, Part 2 [Click here to view Part 1.]

Gamble:  I can imagine that comes with its challenges when you have 350 physicians and so many non-physicians. I’m sure there’s a learning curve in having so much involvement.

Johnston:  Yes, it really has been. We had done the entire implementation, start to finish, during the pandemic. Prior to Covid, we would have been meeting in person and in much smaller work groups. But because we had been meeting virtually from the beginning, our work groups could be larger.

That, of course, did have its own set of challenges, but considering the size of our workgroups, we were able to make decisions in a short timeframe. I was surprised; I thought the size of our work groups would slow us down — and actually, Epic even counseled us against it. But Baptist is such a collaborative hospital, and everyone wanted to participate. My mantra is, if you want to participate, let’s find you a seat at the table. And so, we did have much larger work groups than we previously had — and larger workgroups than was recommended — but because people were able to participate, I feel like we had a really transparent implementation. Everyone knew those concerns from the beginning and everyone knew the issues we were tracking. Doing it this way allowed people to voice their opinion and say, ‘I agree with the build,’ or ‘I disagree with this.’ It came with its challenges, but the benefits of doing it this way far exceeded any of the challenges we faced.

 

Gamble:  At your previous organizations,