Good IT System, Vague Implementation Strategy a Challenge for One CIO - Page 1

Good IT System, Vague Implementation Strategy a Challenge for One CIO

The Nevada Cancer Institute learns it takes more than a dream budget to build a world-class medical center.

When Richard Faircloth became the CIO at the Nevada Cancer Institute, it seemed like he had hit the jackpot:

He would be in charge of IT at a brand-new, state-of-the-art medical facility financed by big-time casino money. As is often the case in Las Vegas, however, the reality turned out to be quite different from the dream.

The institute was building a glitzy new facility on the edge of the desert, but for all its cutting-edge technology, there was no good plan to make it all work together. Some of the high-tech gear turned out to be impractical. In exam rooms, outlets were on the wrong walls. The mission-critical core

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electronic medical record (EMR) system needed serious adjustments. All in all, the road to world class turned out to be surprisingly bumpy.

"There was no plan on how to get everything magically running," Faircloth says.

"IT," adds Phillip J. Manno, the chief of clinical oncology at the institute, "has been as stressed as you can get."

Faircloth was the institute's second CIO before the new facility even opened. He joined the institute in April 2005 after the first CIO returned to the casino industry. Faircloth says he inherited a good IT system but only a vague implementation strategy -- and a six-month deadline, which ultimately came down to a four-week race to the finish to complete the data center build-out.

"I was given a four-week window from the time we were given the keys to the time we were seeing patients," says Faircloth. "But the plan to get this up and running wasn't there. They kind of knew what they were buying, but not how they would put it together. The vendors were told, 'Configure wherever you want, and hopefully it will all work.'"

This was first published in August 2007