When you have timelines in place and milestones to meet, as CIOs always do, the last thing you want is to delay them. But when disaster strikes – and poses a strain on your team’s resources – difficult decisions have to be made; projects need to be put on hold and expectations need to be adjusted.
It’s a difficult scenario for any organization; particularly one specializing in behavioral health, where “patients can be even more distressed and have more anxiety and worry.” For BestSelf, which was formed by the merger of Child & Adolescent Treatment Services and Lake Shore Behavioral Health, meeting this needs of this population is one priority that cannot be put on hold, according to Kevin Wiese. Recently, he spoke with healthsystemCIO about how his team worked to ensure care continuity during the pandemic, all while ensuring a major EHR migration stays on track, and how he has been able to leverage his previous experience in project management. He also discussed the key challenges in going through a merger, how the organization is looking to improve security, and what he enjoys most about working in the behavioral health setting.
Part 1
Part 2

* EHR training with super users
* Leading technology integration during the merger
* Migrating records: “We planned thoroughly and had the right people involved.”
* The “large & lengthy project” of merging data centers
* From the vendor to the provider side
* Value of executive support – “That goes a long way in helping me do my job.”
* Telehealth’s potential impact in behavioral health
* “We don’t want these to be IT projects.”

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Bold Statements
It took some time, as these things do, but we planned thoroughly on the IT side, and we had the right people involved.
Our executive team really supports the use of technology, understands the importance of it, and understands the importance of security. That goes a long way in helping someone like me do my job
On the IT side, we look at our staff as our customers. We have a thousand customers here at BestSelf; our top priority is to provide the best service to them that we possibly can.
The behavior health space tends to have a higher no-show rate for visits than other specialties, and so we’re wondering if the convenience of being able to do a telehealth session can help us reduce that rate. Time will tell as we continue to look at the data.
Oftentimes, we end up learning things from our non-IT staff. So, it’s important for us to survey those folks and do a thorough job of testing applications before we go ahead and do a mass deployment.
Gamble:  A big part of transitioning to any new solution is training. Can you talk about your approach to that?
Wiese:  We’re lucky enough to have a wonderful training department at BestSelf that will play a large part in coordinating and conducting the training program for the new EHR system. We’ll start meeting with them to craft a strategy for how we’re going to involve our super users, get them trained, and develop plans to get the rest of the organization up to speed on the product, hopefully by the end of this year.
We haven’t finalized anything yet, but that will no doubt include things like a training lab where folks can get some hands-on experience with the application. It includes some web-based training as well that makes it easier f...