August 11, 2011
One thing that is never taught in an MBA courses, is how to appear poised and in control. In the military we would call this having “Command Presence.” It’s a natural impressive appearance and attitude that commands respect. The flip side of this is someone that appears “rudder-less.” The wind takes them wherever it is blowing and they just go along with the organizational flow.
July 27, 2011
Once the ink is dry on your EMR contract, you begin the process of understanding all the other pieces of your application. These are often 3rd party software solutions that are provided by the vendor. However, you soon find out that the vendor wants you to work with these “subcontractors” directly in order to resolve integration issues, development deficiencies and customizations.
July 21, 2011
I have had my iPhone for a long time. When I first got it, it was somewhat of a novelty. The BlackBerry users could not understand why I would give up the interoperability with corporate networks in favor of this new niche’ device.
May 19, 2011 Pete Rivera
In the early stages of EMR adoption, most organizations were happy if their providers just attended the EMR kick-off meeting. Now we have a national effort underway to deploy EMR’s to most providers. So when it comes to EMR adoption you have a few different levels of expertise and different technology styles to consider.
May 10, 2011 Pete Rivera
If you have been around Healthcare IT for a few years you soon realize that there are two IT areas; Hospital and Ambulatory. The primary reason this exists is the differences in how each area views reimbursement, including reimbursement rate for procedures, professional fees, DRG’s, length of stays, and claim lag days. From a technology perspective, the line is truly blurred when you think about how ambulatory services has evolved over the years. Many procedures that required hospital admission and longer length of stays are pushed to the ambulatory setting.
April 7, 2011 Pete Rivera
IT Project Portfolio Management is an art on to itself. The priorities associated with each request often changes on a weekly basis. Organizations struggle because they have a set Strategy and Vision, but these are often preempted by a system being down, new government requirements or the CEO coming back excited from a technology conference.
March 17, 2011 Pete Rivera
For such a large initiative as ICD10 and 5010, the HIT buzz still seems to be focused on HIE and Meaningful Use. Maybe it’s the long lead times or the fact that it’s a “coding thing,” so why should IT drive it? The ugly truth about ICD10 is that productivity loss associated with coding and chart review will be alarming.
January 24, 2011
The truth about patient portals is that it is competing against Banking portals, Credit Card portals, Insurance portals, Company Employee portals, and some very slick Government portals (HealtheVet). The consumer expectations are set very high. In my case I expected some very basic health information that would help me manage my diabetes. I want to review health data just as much as I want to keep tabs of my bank expenses, on-line bill pay and on-line statements.
January 12, 2011
I was asked the other day to name ten key steps to Project Management. Well as you know, not everything fits into a nice size box. In fact I have been banned from wrapping Christmas presents because things did not fit right in the boxes. Well, that's another blog topic. For now, here are my Top Ten PM steps for success.
December 20, 2010
Nobody really believes that their programming skills are so bullet proof that they can just plug it into production and it will work right out of the gate. But I keep hearing of analysts and system managers that do just that. They don't have a test environment or they allow vendors to migrate a change to production without fully testing it. They have a naive belief that the vendor has already smoke tested the change so they should know what they are doing. The reality is that every system is different.
