However, healthcare systems face the challenge of delivering these changes with fewer IT resources than ever before. A recent CHIME survey showed that 65% of healthcare CIOs say retaining qualified IT resources is their largest operational burden.
Despite this challenge, healthcare systems can improve efficiency by aligning their change management processes with best practice. Here are a few strategies to consider:
Prioritize Projects Based on Value
Effectively prioritizing change requests is crucial to gaining efficiency. Teams with limited resources need to focus their time on delivering projects that yield the most value for their customers. IT and operational stakeholders can leverage data insights and collaboratively define key performance indicators (KPIs) for each request. Baselining and establishing targets for each KPI helps estimate the value of each proposed change. Prioritizing requests based on opportunity not only enables teams to focus their efforts on the most impactful projects, but also improves collaboration and transparency in the triage process.
Reduce Waste Through Agile Processes
Traditional Waterfall practices require teams to invest lots of upfront time in the design and development of large releases. However, the end result often falls short of expectations. Waste is any change that doesn’t produce value, and reducing it is key to working more efficiently.
In Agile practices, teams focus on getting small, isolated work packages into production quickly and safely. These approaches allow teams to refine their ideas in a real-world setting and make adjustments based on feedback. By using these principles, teams can detect waste early on and minimize the risk of investing time in changes that don’t produce results. This approach allows organizations to focus a larger percentage of their resources on delivering value.
Promote Continuous Knowledge Sharing
Reliance on a specific individual’s knowledge or skill-set poses risks to an efficient operating model. One risk is that tasks cannot be easily distributed among the team, resulting in a backlog. Furthermore, if that individual leaves the organization, the team must spend time orienting themselves to cover that area, rather than delivering results for their customers. To mitigate these risks, healthcare systems can promote cross-functional teams consisting of both IT and operational stakeholders. This approach helps eliminate single points of failure and knowledge silos, ensuring that everyone is learning from each other and working together to achieve the desired outcomes
Looking to maximize efficiency and value at your healthcare organization? Contact us today to learn more about how our engagement approach can help you achieve operational excellence and provide an optimal patient experience.
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