Chris Belmont, System VP/CIO, Ochsner Health System
Five years ago, Chris Belmont was called upon to help Ochsner Health System recover from one of the worst natural disasters the United States has seen in decades. Not only was the organization able to get back on track, but it acquired several facilities, forcing leadership to begin the process of replacing the homegrown record system with an EMR that could more effectively serve its growing patient population. Belmont was looking for a partner — not just a supplier, and that’s exactly what he got with Epic, a company that uses unconventional methods to achieve results. In this interview, he talks about why Ochsner called on third-parties to assist with the enterprise EMR rollout, why integration always trumps individual preferences, and how to get the right mix of talent in the C-suite.
Chapter 2
- Bringing in Encore for assistance with clinical content
- The HealthLink experience — “We just did things right”
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Bold Statements
I didn’t want just a warmed-over version of our EHR; I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to say, ‘Could we just re-engineer some things? Can we look at some industry’s standards? Can we look at best practices?’
We had a level of confidence that Encore could deliver, and they are. It hasn’t been squeaky clean, like all projects, but just as I expected, they have made things right for us and have made the right adjustments and changes and increased our level of engagement appropriately, and we feel that we’re on track.
We didn’t focus on just growing the business; if we got on an engagement, we focused on doing the right thing for the customer. They were 100% referenceable, and we lived up to that.
There were sales quotas and there were billable quotas, and that model just doesn’t work, in my opinion. Once I build a relationship with a client, I want to see that all the way through and deliver on my commitments.
Guerra: Let’s talk a little bit about Encore Health Resources—when, why, and how you got involved with them. The first decision, I would imagine, is do we need an outside consultant to help with the project; or maybe that’s just a foregone conclusion, but take me through that decision.
Chris: We realized that we needed some assistance with the clinical content. Part of my fear was if we didn’t use someone from the outside, we would just do more of the same. We’ve been at this for 15 to 20 years, depending on how you count it, and a lot of those people are still here. And I didn’t want just a warmed-over version of our EHR; I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to say, ‘Could we just re-engineer some things? Can we look at some industry’s standards? Can we look at best practices?’ And so we elected to get a third party involved.
We went through a mini-selection process; we put out an RFI, narrowed it down to three choices, did some interviews, and then selected Encore. A lot of that has to do with our history. I was an ex-Healthlink employee, so I know a lot of those folks. Part of the decision was we wanted someone we could trust that could drive this, and we didn’t have any lag time in there or any buffer to have a slippage in the clinical content. Our timeline was too aggressive and we needed that clinical content to come into place with well enough in time for us to go live. And we weren’t going to push our go-live date.
We had a level of confidence that Encore could deliver, and they are. It hasn’t been squeaky clean, like all projects, but just as I expected, they have made things right for us and have made the right adjustments and changes and increased our level of engagement appropriately, and we feel that we’re on track.
Guerra: So you worked for Ivo Nelson and Dana Sellers at Healthlink?
Chris: I did.
Guerra: And now you are their customer.
Chris: Yes. They are a partner of ours. But the reality is that nobody leaves this industry. I was with Siemens for 10 years. I was with Healthlink and then IBM, I’ve been on the side of the fence twice. So, yeah nobody leaves this industry. We’re all in this fraternity. That’s the way most meetings go—we start throwing names and saying, ‘Who do you know in the industry?’
Guerra: Right. So you’re not getting revenge from them for not giving you days off?
Chris: No. I thoroughly enjoyed my Healthlink days. That was absolutely the high point in my career up until now. I really enjoyed working there. We had a great group of people and we did good things.
Guerra: I was going to get into that later in the interview, but we might as well just dip in to it now. All of the people I have interviewed at Healthlink have said that it is a very special place.
Chris: It was.
Guerra: And so many people that have achieved significant levels of success worked there at some point. Tell me a little bit about that time.
Chris: Well Ivo’s thing was, ‘We hire the best of the best.’ When I left Siemens, I had spent two or three years in implementation, and then I moved to the sales and customer support side of the house. And when I left there, I was thinking, who is going to want an old tired warhorse that only knows Siemens, but I got there and was like, ‘Wow, there’s some good people here.’
We just did things right. We didn’t focus on just growing the business; if we got on an engagement, we focused on doing the right thing for the customer. They were 100% referenceable, and we lived up to that. We wanted to make things right, and that’s kind of why I went with Encore, because I knew that the mindset was still there with Dana and Ivo. They did bring in some great people. It amazed me—every time I would get on to a project, I thought, ‘There is some talent here.’ They attracted some good folks, and we provided good value for our customers. It was just a good place.
Guerra: And then they sell the company to IBM, and within a year, everyone heads for the hills. What happened?
Chris: Well, you know, I was acquired twice. I was with SMS when Siemens acquired them, and then I was with Healthlink when IBM acquired them. I think that when you take a business model and put in to a larger business model, these things happen. So we initially got fragmented a little bit. The sales and the delivery got fragmented, which I think was one of the strengths of Healthlink; not only could I propose and contract for a project, but I actually participated in the delivery. And that wasn’t as easy to do in the IBM world. There were sales quotas and there were billable quotas, and that model just doesn’t work, in my opinion. Once I build a relationship with a client, I want to see that all the way through and deliver on my commitments. It began more difficult there. And then just the big bureaucracy—we were large. I think one of Epic’s successes is the fact that they’re not publicly traded. We weren’t publicly traded. Healthlink was very agile and we could do things kind of quickly, whereas when you’re publicly traded, you have more bureaucracy and more gates to get through to get something done.
Guerra: And you have to meet those quarterly numbers.
Chris: You do, and they did. I made a conscious decision to say, I want to be closer to the customer, and I felt myself spending too much time on the bureaucracies side of things. I enjoyed the company though, and I really want to qualify that. IBM was good, as was Siemens. It just was not what I was looking for at that time, professionally.
Guerra: Right.
Chris: Not to mention the fact that Ochsner called me and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to come help us recover from Katrina.’ So that was an easy decision for me.
Guerra: Sure. Talk about meaningful work, right?
Chris: Yeah, absolutely. It’s my chance to get back to the community. I’ve been here all my life.
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