Top Ten Things to Know When Moving New & Existing Technology into your New Hospital

Hire effective project managers. Project management is an art form, and nothing puts such form on display as a multifunctional project portfolio. It is sometimes possible to make a tech lead a project manager; it almost never works the other way around. Even so, your team will be overwhelmed with all of the life cycle aspects of project implementation. To ask them to act as project managers does them a great disservice as well as creates a hindrance to your customers. Having fully trained and certified project managers will help you meet your milestones and keep your projects on track.

Manage scope creep. Shortly after project kick off, celebration gives way to scope creep. Oftentimes, the excitement of new technology and the lack of budget considerations and other hidden costs lead customers to believe that technology is easy to implement and simply can’t possibly be that expensive! Managing scope creep will help you deliver the project on time and on budget.

Test, test, test. Some things look great on paper or in the lab. Integrating them in a critical care work center can be a different story. Conduct extensive unit testing, regression testing, integrated testing and complete end to end testing, especially with third party vendors. Maintain good records and conduct multiple cycles. Documenting and fixing project defects will save time and effort at go-live.

Keep documentation current. Good documentation will help minimize errors and enable all project deliverables to be on time and on budget. Using version control with an integrated document management system contributes to effective communication and better overall process management.

Hit your milestones. The easiest way for a project to get into trouble is to blow past milestones, considering them insignificant…or falling for an even more dangerous trap, “well get to them later.” No, you won’t, because other project milestones will be in the way. Keep the milestones and promises you set forth when you put your plans together. They were put there for a reason; hit your milestones when they are due.

Hold people accountable. The best route to success is to have everyone involved with solid governance and clear lines of authority and responsibility. Make sure this a top to bottom team effort with effective communication and collaboration at all levels.

Have an effective governance strategy. An effective governance strategy will help to create a framework for the authority and accountability needed to keep projects moving and to make them successful—this is especially important in matrix environments. A well-established and thought-out strategy facilitates effective communication and configuration management, and provides for a forum when tough decisions need to be made.

These ten principles helped us keep the lines of communication and dialogue open and created the cohesiveness and teamwork essential for such a complex operation. Simply stated, the technology is important, but the management of workflow; end-to-end testing, governance and strategy; and communication and collaboration were the foundation for our synergistic project execution and success.

Jaime B. Parent, FHIMSS, CPHIMS, PMP, is associate CIO and vice president, IT Operations at Rush University Medical Center.