Anticlue

Elizabeth Harrin has a wonderful post on the complexity in mega it projects. The article relays the project management approaches for opening a new 7-star hospital in dubai covering many aspects from managing the complex interdependencies, maintaining the cutting edge of technology, to gracefully transitioning to normal support for the hospital - definitely worth reading.

These are common trails and tribulations in healthcare it project management. The pinnacle of ones career is often opening the doors on a new facility, and I have also had the opportunity to be a part of such an initiative. Here are some key words of wisdom building upon a couple of points within Elizabeth's post.

Take Away Points

• Contracting - Lisa has a key part of maintaining and being up to date on the latest release of the equipment or software. The complexity here is enormous and needs its own interdependent matrix. The latest version of windows 7 probably hasn't even been through the testing labs of most healthcare it niche software suppliers. Additionally, contracting takes time! A good contract is a great foundation for a good implementation. Give contracting the time it needs.
• Plan to support the facility - The plan to have the team support the facility for a year is realistic. I have seen organizations back down from support within 3 months, and then have to come back to full team support a year or two later, when census has been drastically low. The other key component is to make sure as a part of transition, a prioritization categorization for support is well established. This is going to be worth its weight in gold getting the team to focus and release the top 5 issues every couple of weeks. With this concept of release, should be well ingrained in the institutions mindset. Don't fall into the whack a mole and death by a thousand paper cuts approach to system maintenance. Plan a release schedule, and stick to it.
• Understand Workflow and Test the Workflow - It's a good idea to take the time and map out the all the process flows in a grand master flow for the clinical and financial workflow. Clinical and Financial practices are tightly interwoven, but often treated as silos. There should be time in the plan to test them as silos and as a whole.
• Standardization and minimize variation - This is one I just think is key and I'm adding it into consideration. Iit comes from thinking in terms of functions than systems. Way too often I have seen the case where a hospital has two different system which have the exact same funcitonality and support the same workflow. There is a reason it is rumored HCA can its standardized systems in a 10 month timeframe. While building your house focus on standardization, don't get that latest EEG system just to have one neurologist, when the others like this other system.

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