Office/Physician Characteristics of a Successful Implementation

We have found that many characteristics that enable successful implementation of information technology projects or for that matter any office projects are human rather than technological factors.

Medical offices that have had successful electronic health record implementations have the following characteristics:

1. Excellent teamwork
2. Excellent communication skills
3. A spirit of adventure and continual improvement
4. The ability to handle adversity and bumps in the road well.
5. Excellent problem solving skills
6. A willingness and flexibility for individuals to go outside their job descriptions in order to make things work.

Family physicians who have had successful electronic health record implementations have the following characteristics:

1. An interest in how their entire practice works as well as parts of the practice that are inefficient and may be subject for improvement with an electronic record.
2. A teamwork mentality and the ability to trust employees as well as delegate appropriately.
3. An appreciation of the work involved in transitioning from paper charts to electronic charts and a willingness to perform this work.
4. A willingness to change their work process from a paper-based system to a new work process that takes advantage of information technology.