Your development team is the linchpin of healthcare innovation for your organization. These IT experts fill many roles, from going out to find new technologies to coding tailored software for your systems. That said, staying efficient in implementing changes or maintaining existing systems can be challenging.
If you are looking for ways for your team to work smarter, not harder, here are four suggestions to explore.
1. Review Your Internal Operations/Workflow
The efficiency of your team impacts how well healthcare innovations turn out for your organization overall. It pays to review workflow, operations, etc. periodically. Many processes can be used to assess daily operations. One popular method that enables your entire team to participate is the retrospective. This includes at least one team meeting where every member of the group has a chance to say what they like and don't like about the job, workflow, or previous project.
There's nothing as good as a retrospective for an information-gathering tool. You'll be able to find out directly from your staff how they feel about everything, from the pace of work to the office furniture. Nothing is taboo to bring up, so this process offers plenty of opportunities to find overlooked challenges and solutions to time wasters and productivity slowdowns.
2. Test a New Healthcare Innovation via a Pilot Project
It's easy for a development team to get excited about a new technology and want to implement it across the entire organization right away. Without proper real-world testing of the process, though, that move could backfire. Your team won't have the test data that shows whether the new tech will work for your organization. Alternatively, it could be useful, but a pilot project would have identified easily resolved issues before launch.
Fortunately, the process for most beta tests/pilots is budget friendly and can be time adjusted to fit your schedule:
- Set up a small test of the new healthcare technology in one department.
- Use the new technology for a few months.
- Gather data, and analyze it before implementing technology across the entire organization.
- Save money on potentially failed technology upgrades.
3. Create a Defined Plan for Technology Implementation
When you are dealing with new software or technology, you’ll need to create a precise plan and schedule for implementation. Your team may need more time or to shift the schedule around as you go, but having this plan in place will help keep everyone on track.
A shared scheduler software or CMS that everyone can check to see what's due and when can help the entire team. They will be able to:
- See who does what task.
- Check their expected deliverables weeks or months in advance.
- See who will receive a project when they are finished with it.
Creating a schedule for your IT team does significant work for a minimum amount of time invested. You'll be able to list out each task and the implementation process, starting with big stuff and breaking that up into small tasks. Assign time estimates for each project task so the team knows your expectations.
Online schedulers also offer added functionality. Make it possible to email team members their tasks, and include links to documentation and instructions. Finally, each member should be able to mark their task completed and assign it to the next person in the process for completion.
4. Augment Your Team with a Domain Expert
If you have a big project to take on or are looking at a healthcare innovation, it can be helpful to hire a healthcare consultancy with an entire team of experts and managers to keep things moving along. These specialists have extensive knowledge of healthcare technology, its implementation, and federal regulations. Since they are already a part of the healthcare consultancies' team, you won't have to worry about interviewing and hiring new staff members, making payroll, or doing any administrative tasks other than paying the consultancy fee.
Best of all, healthcare IT consultants have worked on the process of implementing new technologies dozens of times. They know how to keep the project budget friendly, save time, and be effective. These consultants also have connections with manufacturers and wholesalers of hardware, which can help when purchasing new equipment.
Streamlined Healthcare Innovation Is an Ongoing Process
Healthcare organizations don't have to suffer through slow transitions to new technology. It's possible to speed up your team, minimize failures and setbacks, and save on sourcing hardware and software.
However, it is a process rather than a one-time solution. You’ll need to periodically review your team's workflow and even bring in a healthcare technology solutions partner. This way, your organization will remain sharp and efficient at all times.
Here at OtterSoft, we help healthcare technology providers drive innovation and integrate smoothly with legacy systems to keep things in motion, address the challenges of healthcare innovation, and seamlessly sync information. To see how we can help you overcome the challenges of healthcare innovation, contact us today!
