Most Improved Winners Follow Varied Paths: To Conquer Similar Challenges, Some Hospitals Take a "Rapid Fire' Approach, While Others Go Step by Measured Step (Most Wired‪)‬

In 2008, after The Christ Hospital split from its parent health system, Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, information technology administrators at the newly independent, 555-bed hospital had a huge task in front of them. They needed to rebuild the organization's entire IT infrastructure and they needed to do it fast, explains Chester Maze, the hospital's vice president and chief information officer. During the course of the next eight months, The Christ Hospital embarked on a rapid-fire deployment that included clinical systems from Epic, financial applications from Lawson Software Solutions, and 150 other ancillary systems including PACS and labs. The hospital enlisted CareTech Solutions as an infrastructure provider and during the initial stages, the IT department relied on Accenture to provide project management services.