| Our Approach |
| Unlocking
the value of clinical and business management systems
is essential for the performance driven organization.
Since 1989, we have worked to deliver meaningful
programs and effective strategies to improve our
clients’ financial, operational, and patient
experience performance through their investments
in IT products and services. There are “lessons
learned” we would like to share. We want to
help you think ‘healthcare strategy enabled
by IT’ and then use our skills, knowledge,
and experience to fulfill the promise of IT.
Truth is most IT endeavors don’t live up
to expectations. According to the META group,
84% of companies do not do ‘business cases’
for their IT projects at all or just do them on
a select few. In addition, 89% of companies are
flying blind with virtually no metrics in place,
and 57% perceive they are balancing the pressures
of cost cutting and IT effectiveness – but
perception is not necessarily reality. Too often,
projects are application-driven endeavors. They
begin with RFP’s, demos and site visits,
and continue through implementation using task-level
work plans and calendar-driven milestones. With
this approach, most organizations go-live but
never realize the financial, operational, and
care benefits of the full software implementation
that includes true process change. In addition,
this approach leads to the users questioning the
software’s capabilities. It is not uncommon
to hear “the software doesn’t work
for me”. With low user adoption, productivity
suffers and the cycle of blaming software is perpetuated.
Our experience shows benefits realization comes
from the processes you implement and not the software
you buy. Business process management is enhanced
by effectively integrating IT-enabled process
improvement throughout the organization through
Program Management. Program Management seeks to
manage a portfolio of projects and/or software
to achieve a set of business objectives or a common
business objective. Just as Project Management
will be used to manage individual project timelines,
tasks and activities, Program Management is used
to manage optimized organization-wide outcomes.
Combining these two disciplines in one unified
approach is the only way to get the results you
are expecting from your ‘budget / select
/ implement / support’ procedures.
At ISH, each and every endeavor begins with Discovery.
The objective of Discovery is to create a roadmap
(i.e. “blueprint”) for benefits realization
by tying IT decisions to business requirements.
It is a collaborative series of integrated processes
that includes business needs analysis, organizational
readiness assessment, gap analysis, risk assessment,
process mapping, benefits (ROI) scorecard development,
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculation, process
owner knowledge transfer, and team building.
|
| |
| Discovery |
| |
|
| |
| Data
Collection – Interviews and Site Tours |
| Interviews
are to be conducted with all process owners for
each significant business process in each application
area. Please note that many of these interview participants
will indeed be the process owners. Additional interviews
may be needed based upon the specific organizational
structure and project needs. These interviews ideally
occur onsite; however, telephone interviews will
suffice in some circumstances. Additional data will
be gathered via site tours. |
| |
| Process
Mapping |
| Before
we can begin to develop “best practices”,
we must first understand the current state of business.
We do this by mapping out your current process flows
with formal flowcharts and then present the flows
for validation and acceptance. Once the current
flows have been completed and accepted, we can then
develop future flows that incorporate the business
needs and best practices. These recommendations
are provided in detailed current state/future state
process comparisons where specific processes are
granularly detailed. The benefits realized are depicted
as itemized components within our balanced scorecards.
Each recommendation within the scorecard will have
distinct ROI and benefits realization (baseline
to benchmark) that can be discussed and prioritized
with you. This will prevent getting overwhelmed
with recommendations and help the project stay on
course to achieve the improvement best suited for
your business objectives. |
| |
| Process
Narratives |
|
After the process flows have been completed, we
are then ready to narrate each process improvement
by explaining the current process flow, recommended
process, and resultant benefits. These narratives
are to be in summary or bullet point fashion and
referenced to the specific performance indicator(s)
on the performance scorecard. |
| |
| Review
and Validation with Process Owners |
|
It is imperative that ISH, the Executive Sponsor
and the appropriate Process Owners review the flows
that document the “current-state” of
the health organization. Our “Opportunity
/ Change Barometer Workshop” is an opportunity
to share initial findings and propose direction.
The goals are to elicit reaction from the key stakeholders
to ensure we collaboratively proceed in a direction
that your organization is comfortable with. |
| |
| ROI
and Benefits Calculation |
|
Our experience shows that most organizations understand
there is a level of required process change needed
to realize ROI and benefits from software investments;
however, the open question is how much change is
required and how much change can the organization
effectively absorb. The decision to change is based
upon the defined operational and financial improvement
opportunities, the value of these opportunities
to your organization, the cost associated with realizing
them, and the readiness and organizational preparedness
to achieve them. During Discovery, we will assist
you in making informed decisions on where to operationally
invest in your organization, justify the investment,
validate the role of the system as the process change
“enabler”, and develop the right governance
model and accountability structure for the realization
of the investment. The Benefits and ROI will be
documented in Balanced Scorecards. These scorecards
will be used to guide the selection, govern the
implementation, and help you determine if you have
achieved productive use of your system, as well
as providing metrics to monitor ongoing success.
|
| |
| Discovery
Deliverables |
|
Discovery will yield a “Roadmap to Benefits
Realization”. The Roadmap has two components: |
1.
The Blueprint – this documents where we
are going and why
2. The Project Workbook – this maps out
how we actually get there. |
| |
| Blueprint |
|
The Blueprint documents the future-state business
model and the benefits that will be realized by
this model. This includes: |
| |
| I.
Business Vision |
1. Documented current-state workflow flow charts
and narratives
2. Documented future-state
workflow flow charts and narratives |
| |
| II.
Business Benefits |
1. Balanced Scorecard of performance indicators,
including baseline and targets, to set project
operational and financial ROI expectations and
measure success. During Discovery, we will define
the specific indicators we recommend the project
be measured by. Indicators will be selected based
upon opportunities for improvement and the associated
priorities assigned. The indicators will cross
all the Improvement Programs that an investment
in software represents including Resource Utilization,
Revenue Maximization, Business Intelligence, Supply
Chain Management, Patient Experience and Risk
Management. We will use a portfolio of indicators
that balance Operational Excellence, Customer
and Physician Satisfaction, Professional Educational
and Development, and Financial Improvement.
2. Change requirements to migrate from the current
to the future-state (i.e. Gap Analysis). The requirements
will include a combination of data, interface
and reporting requirements, process and operations
change, and systems set up. We will also include
our assessment of cultural readiness and attitude
toward change, as well as any specific barriers
to change.
3. Data and systems integration model to support
the IT Strategic Plans.
4. Software functionality and integration requirements
to enable the new business processes.
|
| |
| Project
Workbook |
|
The Project Workbook defines the implementation
approach and resources required to close the “gap”
between the current and future-state. The Project
Workbook includes: |
| |
| I.
Governance Model |
1.
Project structure including the Executive Sponsor,
Executive Steering Committee, Project Team, and
Performance Improvement Teams including membership
and responsibilities.
2. Issue escalation and change management procedures. |
| |
| II.
Phased Implementation Approach |
1.
Sequence of implementation phases that balances
benefits realization with the efficient use of
resources.
2. Scope and ROI to be delivered from each phase. |
| |
| III.
Implementation Resource Requirements |
1.
Resource and hour requirements for implementation
activities including planning, data build, system
build, unit testing, training, production and
parallel testing, go live support, plus post-live
support and planning.
2. Project team and end user training approach. |
|
| SolutionSets® |
| To expedite
software implementations and business process management,
ISH has developed SolutionSets®. These are our
copyrighted library of automated diagnostic and
implementation tools that were designed by ISH for
specific software implementations and contain content
from over 200+ projects. They contain industry “best
practices” and software specific tools and
are utilized throughout the project. Our specialists
will use this standardized tool kit for system setup,
security, data coding standards, process best practice
templates, education and training manuals, conference
room pilot scripts, conversion plans, testing plans,
best practices, policies and procedures and user
guides. Our solution sets will help you optimize
the use of software, shorten the time-to-value thus
reducing the cost of implementation, and generate
the required return on investment through business
value. |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
|
