Three Keys to Maximize the Efficiency of Your Hospital IT Group

In early April 2012, CSCs Erica Drazen, Sc.D.1 described the landscape faced by many hospital IT leaders, If healthcare IT leaders werent already overwhelmed with priorities and must-do items on their to-do lists, they might well stop to pause at the sheer number of deadlines and other time-sensitive elements to consider under healthcare reform and meaningful use. Both the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act/Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, through its meaningful use process, are imposing federal mandate after federal mandate on hospital organizations and on physicians (and therefore on physician organizations as well, of course) in the next several years; and keeping track of all the deadlines and other time-related elements under both legislative programs will continue to be a source of confusion and frustration for many, going into the foreseeable future.

http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/industry-exclusive-report-looking-avalanche-deadlines-and-timelines-healthcare

T 801.373.3266 / TF 866.441.0001 / www.attask.com

Three Keys to Maximize the Efficiency of Your Hospital IT Group

Its no secret to anyone working in hospital IT (HIT) that they are behind the 8-ball. With a slim profit margin of around two or three percent and a 30 percent cut in Medicaid claims looming on the horizon next year, HIT leaders are staring a real need to maximize the value of their teams and ramp up efficiency right in the face. Pent up demand to upgrade legacy systems (that in many cases have been neglected for years) dont make all these federal mandates any easier. Gartner reports2 that the penalties for failure to adopt technology, low penetration of clinical solutions and a shift toward value-based care delivery have created strong long-term secular demand trends. Many HIT directors are asking questions like, How am I going to deliver Meaningful Use compliance and keep up with all the other government initiatives? as well as How am I going to keep my staff on prioritized projects and free from drive-by requests; and still keep all my internal customers happy? Although there is no silver bullet (there rarely is) there are three things you can do to help you maximize the efficiency of your hospital IT group. Like most shared/centralized services teams, HIT faces internal and external (like federal mandates) stakeholders who believe that their most recent request is the single most important thing your teams are working on (regardless of whether or not it really is). Unfortunately, unless you have visibility into what your project teams are really working on, it may very well be the squeaky wheels within your hospital that are running your departmentnot you.

Circle the Wagons and Put a Fence Around Your Teams

As the wagon trains crossed the Oregon Trail headed for the riches of the frontier, they would circle the wagons at the end of the day to make sure they knew what, or who, was coming into the camp at night. They did this to avoid wild animals or hostile nativesHospital IT leaders need to do the same thing. Some HIT leaders have recognized the value of implementing sound project management best practices by managing inbound requests through a formalized request queue. This makes it possible for them to standardize the way requests are made and accept, or reject, specific inbound requests based upon their value. Its kind of like putting a fence up around HIT so random requests dont wreak havoc on downstream work. It also takes your people out of the business of managing relationships with multiple project requestors and enables them to do what they do best and spend their time where they provide the most value to the mission and objectives of your hospital. Appalachian Regional Healthcare System manages Blowing Rock Hospital, Charles A. Cannon, Jr. Memorial Hospital and Watuaga Medical Center in North Carolina. Chuck Huntley, a forward-thinking project manager at Appalacian, saw the limitations of managing work with spreadsheets, sticky-notes, email and phone calls. He implemented state-of-the-art project management software to better gather and prioritize work requests. By creating formalized request queues submitted by disparate departments throughout the system to initiate potential projects and other work, directors at Appalachian are able to organize all their work and ensure that their project teams are all working on those things that provide the most value to the organization. Applying a technology solution to the challenges associated with managing the hospital IT needs of Appalachian Regional Healthcare System allowed them to not only understand and manage all the project-based work within the system, but also allowed them to manage all the non-project or ad hoc work to make decisions about things like resources, capacity and help them accomplish their goals.

Key 1

AtTask provides us with the information we need to make informed decisions, says Huntley. We can quickly pull together the information which is the catalyst for success. It is the engine which helps us make those important decisions.
2

Gartner, 20 December, 2011

T 801.373.3266 / TF 866.441.0001 / www.attask.com

Three Keys to Maximize the Efficiency of Your Hospital IT Group

Key 2

Lather, Rinse and Repeat?

I admit nothing is that easy. But capturing best practices and implementing them with templates gets hospital IT groups a lot closer. Although the specifics of the work might change from project to project, the fundamentals of how hospital IT professionals get work done can often be applied to a template. Not only does this make teams more efficient by standardizing practices, it allows the team to scale because team members dont need to re-invent the wheel every time they start a new project. Many HIT groups develop their own processes and workflows for getting things done in a high-quality and efficient manner, but the ability to standardize and implement best practices to provide great value is often the difference between the IT leader who is appreciated by hospital administrators and one that is considered overhead. Cleveland Clinic, is a not-for-profit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Templatizing workflows for repetitive projects, or project elements, is a big deal for the Clinic project managers Minnie Thomas and John Paganini. Templates allow them to capture best practices, apply them to HIT initiatives and scale to meet the goals and objectives of Cleveland Clinic. Paganini says, AtTask has enabled me to organize, facilitate, manage and share information on various projects in my department. I have to say that working with AtTaskI love it. Simple to use, it is more user friendly than the other products on the market, adds Thomas. Onco Services is another fan of templatizing repeatable work elements. They provide support for TRM Oncology by creating strategic medical communications focused exclusively on oncology, hematology and related fields. Onco uses multiple templates built around typical work requests. As new requests are received, templates allow them to quickly and accurately estimate the work required, as well as the costs to their customers. This allows them to modify workflow to easily meet customer requirements, in fact, theyve been able to shorten the time it takes to start new projects so they can quickly build and conduct customized events for their customers.

We arent re-inventing the wheel on every new project. Were building customized projects to do as much or as little as our customers need, says Allison Gardner, Business and Systems Analyst for Onco. As a result, we are able to efficiently plan and execute events around each customers unique requirements. AtTask provides us with the flexibility for creative solutions.

T 801.373.3266 / TF 866.441.0001 / www.attask.com

Three Keys to Maximize the Efficiency of Your Hospital IT Group

Key 3

Provide the Visibility Administration Needs to Inform Decisions

Software tools that capture status, manage assets and facilitate collaboration have been around for a long time and some are even evolving to give a more complete view than red, yellow or green status indicatorsgiving decision makers real visibility in what their people are doing. These tools are not only simple to use, but provide value to the individuals on project teams, giving HIT leaders visibility into whats happening right now, so they can demonstrate value in real time. When IT leaders can see their projects in the context of all the work taking place within the department, they can make informed decisions and communicate them up and down the chain dynamically. In addition to keeping administrators posted on whats going on, hospital IT directors can be confident that they are providing some of the best reporting in the hospital. Sparrow Health System is mid-Michigans leading health care system. In the Sparrow system there are hospitals, labs, pharmacies, a medical supply company, home care services and even an athletic club. Sparrow centralized project tracking for all IT staff. Project management best practices and the appropriate software tools allow them to forecast budgets for IT at a much quicker and more accurate rate. Theyre able to deliver projects faster and can schedule resources more effectively because they have real visibility into what people are working on and how additional projects or other work would impact current project schedules.

Scott Carney, Director or Project Management at Sparrow Health says, AtTask empowers our IT staff to consistently deliver projects on time and on budget, which enables clinicians and physicians to save lives. Sparrows vision is to become nationally recognized in patient and quality experience.

The Bottom Line

HIMSS Analytics reported a 16 percent increase, from 25 to 41 percent in the seven months from February to September 2011, in hospitals that are well positioned to meet Stage 1 of Meaningful Use. Although this is good news, it still leaves almost 60 percent of hospitals in the U.S. unprepared. Hospital IT has a lot to do to. Choosing the right partner to help understand and organize all the work required of your IT organization can help you achieve meaningful use, maximize team productivity and provide a means to collaborate that actually works. AtTask provides hospital IT directors the solution to successfully manage inbound project and work requests, successfully optimize the value of project teams and individual team members by templating best practices and delivers real visibility into what their HIT groups are doing; giving hospitals the organization and collaboration tools they need to deliver on their mission.

About AtTask
AtTask (hospitals.attask.com) is the SaaS leader in project management solutions and the only provider of Collaborative Work Management. AtTask has become the system of choice for hospitals that are looking to improve how IT organizes and manages their work to stay ahead of government compliance projects like Meaningful Use. Our Collaborative Work Management solution intelligently combines social media techniques with traditional project management capabilities to fully engage team members in high priority productive activities while providing management teams with the information and visibility they need to optimize their resources.

T 801.373.3266 / TF 866.441.0001 / www.attask.com