Tricia Julian, CIO, Baptist Health, Chapter 2

It’s one of those things that seems so obvious after the fact. But when you’re in the thick of it, it can be hard to see. Physicians at Baptist Health felt they didn’t have a voice in the decision-making process, which resulted in mounting frustrations. The solution? To create governance councils that help educate users about product functionality, as well as how customization requests can impact other areas. The result? An increased understanding of the need for communication, and why some decisions can’t move forward, says Tricia Julian.

In this interview, she talks about the organization’s aggressive strategy to move to an integrated system, how that initiative has enabled Baptist to build “key partnerships between operations and IT,” and how her team is navigating the tricky balance between customization and optimization. Julian also reflects on her first year as CIO, and how her previous experienced helped prepare her for the role.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* The careful balance of user satisfaction – “We’re careful about how much we customize.”

* Governance councils to help make “more informed decisions”

* Participation in patient panels

* Operations & IT working together – “We’re one big family in terms of trying to take care of the patient.”

* Baptist Health’s “tremendous turnaround”

* Consumer engagement – “We still have to be looking forward.”



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Bold Statements

If we go too far away from their foundational development, when they release their next major set of product enhancements and functionality, we would be hampered to roll it out.

The physicians who joined these service lines have gained strong awareness about the inner functionality of the products, and how making a change may cross over out of their discipline to their colleagues. That awareness is allowing them to make more informed decisions.

The hospitals have asked our IT team to be part of those panels with the patient so that we could specifically talk with them about their experience and if there’s anything that they’d like us to do to help strengthen it.

We’re one big family in terms of trying to take care of the patient, so we wanted to bring all the various perspectives and expertise to bear to really think about how we deliver to the patient what they need.

I’m very pleased with the IT team for really thinking through how to navigate that situation in such a way that we still deliver the technology to our user community and to our patients the way they need, but also are able to pause some of the projects where needed.

Gamble:  I’m sure it was really critical to have a solid governance structure in place. When you described the schedule of the Epic rollout, it seems like it was intense for a while there.

Julian:  Yes, it was. We’re all glad it’s in the rear view. But today, to your point, there are circumstances that emerge where Epic is functioning as it’s designed to, but there may be a desire to configure it differently — to customize a workflow to respond to Baptist Health needs. We’re careful about how much we do customize, and the reason for that caution is we know Epic is constantly developing new functionality in their products, and so if we go too far away from their foundational development, when they release their next major set of product enhancements and functionality, we would be hampered to roll it out if we’ve done too much customization for Baptist Health. There’s a lot of cycle time that would be required to test that capability.

With that said, what we seek to do is pause to assess if that enhancement ...