Why Doctors Are a Pain

When Michael Jones, corporate vice president and CIO of Children'sHealth System in Milwaukee, Minnesota, wants to get through to hismost demanding group of users (the physicians), he goes to grandrounds. As he joins the residents, interns and attending physicians inthe Milwaukee hospital's auditorium, the topics range fromneuroblastomas to psychological sequelae after pediatric trauma. Butwhen Jones attends, the discussion includes IT.

Doctors are not technophobic.Quite the opposite, says Bradford Holmes, health-care researchdirector at Forrester Research. "When it comes to clinicaltechnology--new laparoscopic technology or a new defibrillator--lotsof them are technology addicts," he says. But when it comes to IT,doctors, Holmes says, "have a limited desire to learn new software andapplications, particularly if it will take them a lot oftime."

So when Jones decided to introduce a computerised physician orderentry (CPOE) system at the hospital last year, "There were months ofgoing to grand rounds, physician directors' meetings, any opendiscussion that we could find," he says. He had already built somecredibility with these users shortly after his arrival in 1996, whenhe upgraded a hospital information system to handle administrativeprocesses like registration and billing.

This time around, he enlisted the help of critical care pediatricianDr. Carl Weigle, a 12-year veteran of Children's Health. Since thedoctors weren't exactly clamouring for automated order entry, having aveteran physician touting the system definitely helped. Getting ardentusers to advocate with their peers is the best way to get buy-in forbig technology changes. But that was just the first step. What drawsdoctors in are features that improve patient care, save time orgenerate revenue. Weigle and Jones found that their best selling-pointfor CPOE was patient safety. According to the National Institute ofMedicine, avoidable medical errors kill between 44,000 to 98,000patients a year, and automated order entry, which eliminates mistakesdue to indecipherable handwriting, offers a powerful solution to thatproblem.