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Category: Societal Issues
Date Submitted: 07/30/2016 03:46 PM
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...