ABSTRACT
The moment people decided to adopt an Electronic Health Record (EHR), the need for some form of governance was inevitable. Early on this wasn't obvious and many organizations didn't have any type of EHR governance structure. In fact, in 2014, more than 5 years after the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act was signed into law, a report from HIMSS Analytics indicated that only 60% of healthcare organizations had a formalized EHR governance policy in place, and just 63% of those organizations included a multi-disciplinary advisory board or committee to monitor, suggest, and approve changes to the data governance strategy. For many organizations, EHR governance processes evolved organically in response to change requests as they were made. While deploying an EHR governance structure early is better, this framework must have a mechanism for setting expectations and priorities to thwart unrealistic assumptions. When launching one's governance structure, the source of EHR change requests deserves thoughtful consideration.
