Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/351959
50 Turnarounds: Ideas to Improve Performance C M Y CM MY CY CMY K With this approach, you can benefit through a consistent, enter- prise-wide strategy that reduces the number of vendors, systems and technologies, while leveraging purchasing power and optimiz- ing capacity. Fully understand potential risk areas — particularly in the area of information management. In a merger situation, many of the combining entities have different policies and practices. In an industry like healthcare, that can indicate a level of security risk and exposure. As health systems merge, the respective policies for information destruction and legal holds are often inconsistent, making it difficult to find specific documents for discovery. E-dis- covery costs are not the only major risk; your organization may be more susceptible to litigation or even lack the ability to prop- erly defend itself because it can't find records due to inconsistent policy application. It is also important to understand the security- related risks across the entire health system to minimize the risk of breach and avoid potential fines. By streamlining vendors, you can implement consistent, enterprise- wide policies and procedures, thereby enhancing information secu- rity, improving compliance and enabling you to better respond in the event of a discovery request. This strategy will also enhance your ability to deliver patient care because your information is consoli- dated and protected in a much more consistent and compliant way. Evaluate the true, total costs of managing information across the health network and across all the providers involved in the merger. Include not only the costs for information storage, but also associated costs for real estate, personnel, ongoing maintenance and even your opportunity costs to get an accurate picture. Consid- er outsourcing or out-tasking these information management func- tions to optimize your resources and enhance your strategic focus. Most organizations don't have a full understanding of what it costs to support the lifecycle of managing their information from a to- tal cost of ownership perspective. Often time, information stor- age costs are "hidden" as a shared service line item that loses its granularity in budgeting. Because the true costs are not captured, they can't be measured and forecasted. In addition, many times the true costs are much greater than perceived or projected. A key benefit of outsourcing is the visibility you have on your re- source consumption; with outsourcing you can measure it, man- age it and get real cost center visibility, enabling you to properly allocate costs and more accurately budget for the future. Addition- ally, you can change behavior around resource consumption when respective departments are responsible for funding their share. The most compelling reason to outsource, however, is to support your organization's strategic focus. This approach enables you to preserve your capital for your most strategic initiatives, including healthcare delivery and revenue generation. Develop a strategy to handle hybrid records across the health system. Paper is still pervasive throughout most health networks, and in a merger situation, there is a high likelihood that many of the departments and functions will be paper-based. As part of your assessment, you will need to address the full spectrum of information managed, regardless of format or location, and plan for the rapid transition from physical to electronic. For most providers, particularly those that are well along in their EMR implementation, it is no longer necessary or cost-effective to maintain onsite storage of archival paper records. Through the de- velopment and application of retention policies across the health network, you can determine which records are past their reten- tion dates and destroy them in accordance with policy. Frequently accessed records can be scanned, so they are readily available when requested in an electronic format. Archival paper records can also be scanned as they are requested and made available on-demand. In addition, resource-heavy production functions, such as release of information and scanning, can be outsourced to multiply your efficiencies and cost savings. Assess your ability to manage the storage of the growing amounts of electronic data - including PACS, RIS, HIS and electronic health records. Does your current solution maximize capacity utilization, allowing you to scale on demand? It is critical that your infrastructure can easily scale as your health system goes through the merger process and the volume of data grows? Traditionally, healthcare providers have "overbought" storage ca- pacity in anticipation of their future needs. Because of the rapid growth of electronic health data, this overbuying can result in a significant amount of idle storage capacity that you are paying for ahead of use. An outsourced approach to storage and information management enables you to operate with 100 percent capacity utilization for optimal cost effectiveness. With this approach, you can increase storage and support your data growth on-demand, and eliminate the planning, procurement, deployment and migration burden. Even in the best of circumstances, planning for a merger or acquisi- tion requires careful preparation and detailed analysis. It is an inher- ently difficult task to balance the information management require- ments of providers and physician networks — supporting multiple departments and thousands of patients — with the dueling needs to provide easy access to information and HIPAA-level security. This challenge is magnified even further in a merger situation with each department using its own unique solutions and processes. A well-planned strategy can unlock substantial savings throughout the process and reduce the burden on staff. Through the reduction of redundancy, providers can realize cost savings through reallo- cating resources and minimizing operational complexity. Addition- ally, from a risk perspective, providers can enhance security and compliance and be better positioned in the event of a discovery request. Most importantly, the net result can improve the delivery of patient care by freeing up dollars and resources for care-cen- tered initiatives. n Iron mountain Incorporated (nyse: Irm) provides information management services that help hospital providers lower the costs, risks and inefficiencies of managing their physical and digital data. Founded in 1951, Iron mountain manages billions of information assets, at Healthcare organizations and beyond, including backup and archival data, electronic patient records, document imaging, secure shredding, and more, for organizations around the world. Visit the company website at www.ironmountain.com/healthcare for more information.