STORIES & SOLUTIONS FOR THE MODERN BUSINESS USER

I’m no project manager (PM), I promise you that. I don’t like deadlines; I sometimes skip over details that I find boring or monotonous; for the love of all things holy, I do not live for spreadsheets. I believe all of these character flaws rule me out of any project management position. That said, I acknowledge that without project managers, nothing would get done. I’m glad PMs exist and that they’re good at what they do. While I don’t have the skillset or mentality of a project manager, I wholeheartedly agree with a key PM credo: the need for a guiding principles statement for information technology (IT) projects big and small.

Almost every organization says that it is trying to change to meet the increasing demands of customers. This means adopting new technology, or even embarking upon a wholesale digital transformation.

I recently read a fascinating article in JAMIA about using Agile development techniques and stories to prioritize, create, and test clinical decision support (CDS) tools in healthcare information technology (IT). I wanted to share it because I think Agile in general, and stories specifically, can be leveraged in many different ways that benefit clinicians and patients.

The global Electronic Health Record (EHR) market is currently valued at $31.5 Billion and growing at 6% per year.  According to KLAS research, Epic and Cerner dominate the market with a combined 85% market share among large, 500-bed U.S. hospitals.

While the threat of ERP implementation failure sounds scary (and practically expected), a recent Mint Jutras study found that 67 percent of manufacturers and distributors rated their implementations as successful or very successful. With proper planning and buy-in, a successful ERP implementation can save your organization money and improve back-end processes. Here are the morbid missteps to avoid and keep your ERP project out of the implementation graveyard.

I’ve always been fascinated by minimalism. Be it philosophy, architecture, or design. The ethos of “less is more” seems contradictory at first, but it proves accurate and predictive in many aspects of life, or at least in my life. Much as the Fibonacci sequence shows up in random places all throughout nature, I find the concept of minimalism popping up in my clinical world and professional world.

If you read my recent blog post, you’re aware of Mike Monteiro. He’s a designer in the tech space, and he’s pretty outspoken. He runs his own design firm, so . . . he’s allowed to say what he thinks. In an interview this summer, he said something that stopped me in my tracks: “The two most important words in design are why and no.”

Change is a simple process that replaces the old with something new. As simple as change is to define, it is extremely difficult to execute. This is because change occurs within the construct of an established ecosystem that is rooted in how the brain questions and challenges new ideas.

I’m a smart aleck. Maybe you’ve figured this out already. Maybe you have another descriptive name for me. Whatever. Back in the day when I was practicing primary care pediatrics 24/7/365, I got to know a lot of my patients’ parents (who am I kidding? – moms) very well. This happens when you practice with only one other physician for many years. It’s a good thing. Often a mom would describe a child with upper respiratory infection (URI) symptoms, and after I heard the history, I’d snidely comment: “Listen, I’m such a good doctor that I’ve already narrowed this down to only two things. It’s either something, or it’s nothing.”

I was listening to a podcast recently, and heard Mike Monteiro being interviewed. Mike is a designer, author, speaker, and apparently a malcontent. In other words, he’s my kinda guy. He’s written a new book, and that’s why he was making the podcast rounds.