Hbr: Caregrou

9-303-097

REV: AUGUST 11, 2005

F. WARREN MCFARLAN

ROBERT D. AUSTIN

CareGroup

“The good news,” reported John Halamka, CareGroup CIO, as he opened his November 21, 2002

presentation to the board of directors, “is that health care did not suffer.” Over the next 20 minutes,

Halamka recounted a remarkable tale that explained why CareGroup information technology (IT)

systems had completely collapsed for three and a half days the previous week, the steps staff

members and vendors had taken to recover, and how the hospital had reverted to paper-based

systems, many of which had not been used for a decade or more. Though his story contained

challenges and travails, in the end the paper-based systems and recovery efforts had worked well.

Care to some patients had been delayed, but not a single adverse event related to the outage had been

reported. Even so, there were numerous lessons learned and some line items to be added to the IT

budget; Halamka now outlined these for the board.

CareGroup

CareGroup was a team of health-care professionals dedicated to providing the best quality care to

patients in a highly personalized manner. CareGroup and its members offered a broad spectrum of

health services to residents of eastern Massachusetts in a variety of settings, ranging from worldrenowned academic health centers and outstanding community hospitals to physician offices and

community health centers. CareGroup hospital members included Beth Israel Deaconess Medical

Center in Boston, Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, New England Baptist Hospital (NEBH) in

Boston, Deaconess-Glover Hospital in Needham, and Deaconess-Nashoba Hospital in Ayer. With

more than 13,000 employees and 2,000 medical staff, CareGroup offered community-based primary

care and a wide range of specialty services close to where individuals lived or worked.

CareGroup had been formed in a three-way merger on October 1, 1996. The Beth Israel Hospital,

the Deaconess Hospital, and the...