Years ago we learned that if you are driving out of Las Vegas on the 15 headed south, don’t do it on Sunday. The cars are bumper to bumper and you double your trip time. We’d planned to drive about 5+ hours on Monday to the town of Lost Hills, CA. We got up at 5:00 am, walked D and D, and rolled out. I mentioned we had a major project go-live on Friday, so on Monday we opened a command center to track and resolve issues. I put the call on speaker (6:00 am local time was 8:00 am Midland time) and I drove above 25 minutes to Nevada Exit 12 where we stopped for gas, coffee, and White Castle burgers-yep 6:00 am.

I kept the call on while I ran inside and Clint fueled up. With coffee and burgers acquired I hopped in the passenger seat, opened up the laptop and worked issues for the entire drive. While I don’t directly work on the system itself, I problem solve and escalate with vendors. If you have ever worked with me and I needed your attention, then you know that tenacity is one of my super powers. Even rolling down the road I chased down half-interested vendor resources. Ask me how much I LOVE to hear someone we pay a metric buttload of money and with whom we’ve been meeting for months in preparation for this project tell us they have other customers and fail to act with any sense of urgency. And really ask me how much restraint is displayed after claiming “it’s not their problem” and we discover it is. But let me back up.

Our project, merging two separate versions of the same electronic health record system (EHR), was fairly complicated. One system was used by a large orthopedic organization and a large cardiovascular group. The other system is used by the rest of Midland’s outpatient doctor practices. Even though the basic systems were built on the same platform, each was customized for their specific workflow and business practices. When the groups were acquired the plan had always been to consolidate systems and business operations. Easier said than done.

Our go-live started on Thursday night at 5:00 pm. All the main work happened with the EHR vendor and with the 12-15 integrated vendors (lab, imaging, pharmacy, dictation, echo/stress, etc.). The work was planned so the team could log into the consolidated system early Friday morning. They’d closed the practices so the system work could be completed.

That was a great plan until a historic hail storm rocked Midland on Thursday night, ripped holes in the business office roof (see video), pummeled cars with grapefruit sized hail which rendered them un-drivable, and caused damage to many houses. As much of the staff that was able, showed up Friday morning. They had to relocate to dry offices with working computers and with the stress of the system merge and acts of nature-they worked throughout the day and weekend so patients could be seen on Monday morning.

Imagine being a vendor with an attitude on a call with this team on Friday or Monday. Then imagine being their boss or senior executive. I used every phone number and email available AND made sure they understood how to properly provide service. It really doesn’t take much to do what is expected.

We registered 49 issues and closed 33 on Monday. We had a few storm related things that got fixed on Tuesday. There were no showstoppers and we added and resolved 20 more issues Tuesday. Probably more than you wanted to know, but working on the road is part of the adventure.

The drive across the CA-58 was beautiful. We drove past Edwards AFB and through the hills of Tehachapi. We saw the plane graveyard and many windmills.

The road descended into the Central Valley and flattened out. We landed in Lost Hills before noon on Monday so I finished up the day in a stationary spot. The Lost Hills KOA is like a big parking lot off the 5 and 46, and is behind 4 truck stops. It was our last desert stop and topped the day at 90 degrees. The KOA was surrounded by farmland and included chickens-which Denzel was unhappy about (early puppyhood rooster encounter made him afraid of feathers)-and a herd of goats. Dani got to touch noses with a goat through the fence. It was pretty cute for both creatures.

We left Lost Hills early Tuesday and made it to Moss Landing (near Monterey) by 11:00 am. It never got above 70-degrees and we had the windows open. We will fill you in on Moss Landing next.

-Cheryl