Employee stirs controversy over EMR project at Kaiser

A widely distributed e-mail questions whether HeathConnect will work, but the large health system says implementation is on track.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Dec. 4, 2006.

Editor's note: This story incorrectly identifies Justen Deal as an employee of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals. Deal is employed by Southern California Permanente Medical Group, a physician group that has a contract to provide care to members of Kaiser Foundation Health Plans in Southern California. The article also refers to "attempts" to reach Deal for comment. AMNews tried to reach Deal once. AMNews regrets the error.

An employee of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plans and Hospitals distributed a mass e-mail to all the organization's employees Nov. 3, saying the organization's implementation of a $3 billion electronic medical records is going very wrong.

So wrong, that the employee, Justen Deal, writing on his personal blog (www.justen.blogspot.com), likened himself to whistle-blowers at famously scandal-plagued companies such as Enron and WorldCom.

On Nov. 13, Computerworld reported it had obtained a 722-page report that detailed hundreds of technical problems with the HealthConnect system, which is up and running in a few Kaiser facilities. The report appeared to support some of the claims Deal made in his e-mail.

But Kaiser said its EMR implementation, the largest any system has ever attempted, is not in trouble.

"We're taking on a project that no one else in this country has ever attempted and you're going to run into challenges as you go along the way," said Kaiser spokesman Matthew Schiffgens.