Oakland, Calif.-based Alameda Health System has pointed to a troubled EHR rollout as one of the reasons it now has to ask Alameda County officials to allow restructuring and delayed payment of the $198.7 million the hospital owes its county.
"To put it simply, we have run out of cash, we have maxed out our credit lines with the county of Alameda," said hospital trustee James Lugannani, according to a report in the Contra Costa Times.
One of the main reasons for the financial troubles is a bumpy implementation of a Siemens Soarian EHR and billing system solution. The July 2013 go-live of the financial system "did not go as well as planned," CIO Dave Gravender told hospital trustees, according to the report. The hospital's new CFO, David Cox, told the Contra Costa Times problems with the system are tying up about $50 million in operating expenses that could have been put toward something else, such as paying down the hospital's debt.
"[T]he system makes it difficult to collect the right information that you need to bill a claim and makes it hard to identify what kinds of errors are occurring," Mr. Cox said in the report. "It's very disjointed right now. A lot of mistakes are being made."
Siemens has issued a statement denying there is any problem with the technology as delivered. The health system is planning to spend an additional $1.5 million on Siemens' consulting services to help correct any issues, according to the report. The total cost of the IT project was $77 million, including separate technology from NextGen Healthcare.
CEO Wright Lassiter III, who is resigning in December to become president of Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System, will join Mr. Lugannani Monday in asking the county to restructure the hospital's debt.
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