Businesses of all sizes need to be focused on digital transformation, but it is even more important for small to medium size businesses. Investing in digital transformation can accelerate the development of new products, create new lines of business, and personalize the customer experience. Staying competitive relies on being proactive in introducing new technologies and the ability to implement change.
We’re a Yelp nation and want to hear what our peers think about everything from restaurant reviews to products on Amazon. It is no different at work. Senior leadership rolls out a new project and people want to know what it’s really about. They want to know the dirt and they want to hear it from the peers who they think have an inside perspective.
Key among concerns with Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 is its rate of contagion and deadly effects on those susceptible. Recognizing that every day matters in flattening the curve, the Ohio Department of Health is increasing transparency to citizens, and using data to show if social distancing, raised awareness for proper hand-washing, travel restrictions, and other measures are buying more time for the state health systems as they prepare for potential waves and surges of the disease.
As the coronavirus contagion continues to soar, physicians, nurses, and environmental service teams are fighting the war on the frontlines, struggling to both fulfill their duties and care for their families. In the back office, hospital IT teams are engaged in a similar battle. Healthcare workers and resources across the board are being reallocated, becoming increasingly expensive, are difficult to acquire, and in some cases, absent due to their own illness or home responsibilities.
Higher education is undergoing a period of significant disruption and change. The mission of higher education institutions remains the same – teaching and learning. Institutions serve their communities through ongoing research and equipping students with commercially relevant knowledge and skills. The disruption that is forcing fundamental change in higher education is an increasing number of students and their families are not able to afford the price of a college education. Student debt is at its highest ever, forcing educational institutions to compete for a decreasing number of traditional students and an increasing number of students seeking education through other modalities. This is also expanding the emphasis on student retention, success, and fiscal responsibility within higher education institutions.
On this St. Patrick’s Day, we reflect on the luck of the Irish! Roman philosopher Seneca said, “luck happens when preparation meets opportunity,” and this could not be more accurate for organizational change management. The more you plan, manage, and align the more likely you are to realize your business goals in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
COVID-19 has many people managing a remote team for the first time or with their team headed into the unprecedented territory of working remotely. How do you support a smooth transition? Keep the team motivated and productive? Connected to the business? If these questions and others are top of mind, keep reading. Here are some strategies that work when managing remote teams:
Last week, I wrote about some of the things your healthcare information technology (HIT) folks are working on with respect to the novel coronavirus (aka SARS-CoV-2 or 2019-nCoV) and the disease that it causes (COVID-19). To summarize, we’re creating and loading the proper diagnosis codes so we can accurately report and create clinical decision support (CDS) tools. We’re building the new lab tests so once they’re available, our physicians will be able to order them in the electronic health record (EHR). We’re updating order sets and inserting the new tests as appropriate. We’re modifying the patient portal to ensure patients who are at high risk of disease aren’t exposed to other patients or clinicians who aren’t properly protected. I mentioned last week that travel screen is a bit passé at this point because we are well into community spread now (meaning it really doesn’t matter so much if you’ve traveled internationally or not).
I was a bit of a unicorn when I began working at home in 1999. Connecting to work using a 56K modem, minimizing knowledge I wasn’t located in an office, and figuring out how to stay visible while not on site were a few of the challenges. The biggest gains, however, were enhanced productivity and ability to focus on work itself.
If you’re reading this and you’re not aware of the novel coronavirus that’s either already causing a pandemic or is about to cause a pandemic, I suggest you go back to whatever you’re doing and enjoy the bliss that must be uniquely yours. For the rest of us, I thought it might be helpful to give a quick overview of what your healthcare information technology (HIT) team is likely feverishly working on behind the scenes.