ABSTRACT
Practice leadership determined that the first clinic to implement the electronic health record (EHR) would be a small family practice location that was geographically isolated from other primary care and specialty clinics in the group. Extensive customization at some clinics strained the capacity of the information technology staff and reduced their ability to prepare the EHR for on-time rollout at upcoming clinics on the schedule. Moreover, excessive customization limited the opportunity to accomplish needed standardization of workflow and processes across clinic sites. By the time the final clinic’s EHR was installed, the rollout schedule had been delayed multiple times, and the practice was planning for a new round of system customizations to address many problems that arose but went unsolved during the initial implementations.
