Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1480010
14 Executive Briefing 3 EXECUTIVE BRIEFING How can companies make the process of IT integrations and consolidations smoother? Tabitha: With healthcare consolidations, one key focus needs to be the impact on our patients and community. The goal is to improve care at lower costs. By having that lens from the beginning of your integration and ensuring it's part of all your decision-making, you're more likely to be successful. However, that means being able to make difficult choices. To be successful with your integration—to improve care and lower costs to your patients, which is the goal—you need to understand what each organization brings and its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. You need to make hard choices to be able to implement the best practices across those now- joined organizations. That's what Brightwork helps organizations with, and we've seen how difficult it can be. Shannan: I often talk about the concept of doing more with less—making sure that you are getting the most out of the resources that you already have within the IT organization. Many organizations aren't using IT resources as well or as efficiently as they should be. The reason is a lack of governance—basically saying "yes" to everything that the organization wants to do. What is the role of leadership in technology transformation efforts in healthcare organizations? Shannan: The key message for CEOs and healthcare boards is that the organization's technology arm has to partner with the organization's goals. Whatever the board or executive team is trying to accomplish for that organization, the entire technology arm must be at the table and part of that conversation. That's so the IT people can understand how they need to structure their teams to accomplish that vision, whether that will come through the improvement of current technology systems, digital transformation, or optimizing resources. Tabitha: We have more organizations coming into an age of maturity. By this, I mean that many healthcare organizations rushed to add many roles, like getting chief transformation officers in place, and now it's time to take a step back and say, "What do we really need?" What can be done to improve physician, clinician, and employee engagement? Shannan: Improving engagement is a cost-reduction effort. It's expensive to have burned-out physicians and clinicians. It's expensive to have physicians and clinicians resigning and increasing the use of agency nurses and locum providers. At the core level, you're replacing salaried employees with contractors, and contractors are more expensive. There was a huge increase in the use of contract providers and clinicians over the last couple of years, and that's a concerning trend. What can we do to help with clinician engagement and employee engagement? There are a whole bunch of things that are also cost-reducing factors. One example is the clinical inbox. Managing these communications takes a ton of time and creates a lot of dissatisfaction and burnout. Understanding how to make that process more efficient and effective—and helping providers spend less time on it—increases satisfaction and cuts costs. So, on a big-picture level, health systems need to consider physician and clinician engagement and satisfaction as cost- control factors and look at what they can do to reduce costs while improving the lives of their providers. Visit brightworkhealthit.com to learn more about the future of IT infrastructure, and what your organization needs to do to get— and stay—ahead of the curve. n Continue the conversation: Shannan Epps sepps@brightworkhealthit.com @shannan-epps Tabitha Lieberman tlieberman@brightworkhealthit.com @tabitha-lieberman-chcio-9aa9ab4 Launched in 2017, Brightwork is a trusted healthcare consultancy and premier EPIC implementation partner. With an eye on optimizing technologies, modernizing workflows, and transforming infrastructure, we illuminate the path forward and ensure organizations are ready for the right now—and for all that comes next.