Friday, February 17, 2012

Five Ways To Ensure Success in Tech Implementation

Greeting from Tampa! Our 2012 OPEN MINDS Best Management Practices Institute just came to a close. Over 250 execs spent two days sharing best practices for improving organizational performance and at this point, we’re all on information overload!

One of the great presentations today was on implementing new technology. According to Mary Givens, Meaningful Use Program Manager with Qualifacts Systems and Carolyn Hohne, Director of Performance Improvement at The Lester A. Drenk Behavioral Health Center, there are five key practices to ensure success in new tech implementations – which they outlined in their presentation, Five Ways To Ensure EHR Implementation Success all members as:

1. Set realistic expectations with staff from the beginning.

2. The current process must be documented and understood.

3. Conduct reality-based testing.

4. Conduct effective end user training.

5. Ensure the team is ready to go live.

Set realistic expectations with staff from the beginning – Implementing any new technology system will change the structure and culture of your organization, which means that there will be a lot of added stress on staff. Without having realistic goals and clear priorities, it will be difficult to get your staff to be fully supportive of the process.

Current process must be documented and understood – You cannot do process reengineering without a process. This means that you need to think through your current processes and procedures, and then crosswalk how those processes will change once your new technology is in place. And, if you don’t have good process documentation, you can never start too soon.

Conduct reality-based testing – Running a demo of your new technology system isn't enough – you need to ensure that everything will work in the context of your day-to-day operations. Issues with billing and authorization services can affect your bottom line, so you want to make sure all issues and problems are worked out in the testing phase. And, one tip – conduct your reality-based testing in your high-revenue areas in order to protect your cash flow.

Conduct effective end user training – Effective training means something different to everyone, so its best to start by measuring the baseline technology skill level of all staff; this will give you a good starting point. From there, make sure that you utilize different training models and provide both "cheat sheets" and detailed training documents for reference.

Ensure the team is ready to "go live" – This is the final step in the process and one that you can't be too prepared for; test frequently, make sure staff are trained, and have a clear plan. Think about having live support during launch (24/7 coverage, on-call support) to reduce the chances of problems overwhelming staff and your system.

For more on technology best practices, mark your calendars and join us on October 17 and 18 in Baltimore for the 2012 OPEN MINDS Technology and Informatics Institute.

Sincerely,
Monica E. Oss
Chief Executive Officer, OPEN MINDS

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For another free resource, see: Technology is Raising Consumer Expectations  all members 

This resource is free for the next sixty days to all registered OPEN MINDS Circle members.

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