Information Technology In Healthcare… Our Healthcare IT Partners Are Experiencing New Challenges Daily In The Healthcare Industry.
I’ve enjoyed my time focusing on healthcare IT for the past several years. I’m thrilled I continue to have this opportunity at ReluTech.
The healthcare IT challenges I am seeing include things like:
- Span-mandated upgrades for EMR or transition to EMR
- Massive amounts of storage needs for expansion
- A difficult time keeping up with necessary RIS/PACS
- Large imaging files in storage
- Extending the lifecycle of their hardware
- Preparing for future states like public cloud (believe it or not they are starting to look at this even with HIPPA compliance and such)
But it’s not all bad news. See, I have come to realize these challenges come with an opportunity too.
The Exact Healthcare IT Solutions We Propose And Promote Here At ReluTech, Are What Everyone Should Be Considering To Help Us As A Country, Figure Out How To Provide World Class Care Without The World-Class Price Tag.
The goal from all perspectives is to try and find a true partner in each area or function who will work in everyone’s collective best interests to research, find, recommend, and deliver what an organization needs at the lowest acquisition cost, still providing the best outcomes.
Once you have that partner, you have a team who is an expert in their field, understands the end user’s role, and will work hard only for the opportunity to deliver. If you have this you should hang on to that resource and use it correctly.
It seems that every company involved in healthcare delivery has to consider opening up and allowing those who can be trusted advisors, to be part of the team. The difficult part is the interview, trial, and consistent evaluation of that partner until true trust can be confirmed—a process which takes a lot of time. During this time, it is necessary for both parties to really commit to the effort and the opportunity, so each party can afford the time necessary to make this work well. Mutual respect and consideration for each other’s time and resources need to be part of the deal.
I had a conversation with one of my health care service provider customers last week. They shared with me some new reductions coming to them from Medicare. These reductions required this provider to actually alter their business delivery model. Without going into detail, this entity had to quickly figure out how to offer the same high-quality service, but reduce the cost of providing this service. To accomplish this, my contact shared that they had to scramble and find some companies to deliver the product/service and get competitive quotes.
As A Result Of The Challenges They Are Facing, Healthcare IT Managers Are Having To Go Outside Their Usual Vendor List—Which They Have Always Used As The Push Off To Cold Callers In The Past—And Proactively Find And Reach Out To Those “Cold Callers” Themselves.
More Than Ever, Healthcare IT Managers And IT Solutions Providers Like Our Team Here At ReluTech, Need To Work Together To Make A Better Healthcare System. Part Of This Is Appropriate, Affordable, And Efficient Healthcare IT Solutions.
Once you have found that core group of trusted individuals who are not on the payroll, but have the skill set to help, hold onto them and support them so they too can afford the time to be that partner. If you don’t have that, my suggestion is to truly listen to that next elevator pitch someone tries to give you on a cold call. It might just make you look like a hero at some point—now or in the future!
Now, I’m off… Time for me to go make my next hospital cold call.
