When you have an infrastructure in place that everyone is used to working with it can be a daunting prospect to overhaul it. This is especially true in the healthcare world. We went through an infrastructure overhaul in our own business 3 years ago when we realized that we outgrew our customer relationship management software. We should have changed it a year earlier than we did but our organizational procrastination set in because it seemed like such a long and expensive process. Scanning the news in the hospital word alone we see record rates of healthcare providers who are merging with other organizations and who use different software. This can lead to reluctance from both sides to change their policy management software so that there is just one system. Or in some instances a healthcare provider may just feel that their current system no longer fulfills their needs and requirements. In both of these instances it is true that there may be certain differences in usability that leads to certain idiosyncrasies. It is a big decision when considering to go through the chasm of change and is a big unknown for most heath care organizations.

1. HOW TO CHANGE
HEALTHCARE POLICY
MANAGEMENT
SOFTWARE WITH
MINIMAL INTERRUPTION

2.  Every type of healthcare policy management software has its
challenges when it comes to user training.
 It is important that each individual within the organization
has the knowledge of how to use the software correctly and is
one of the key fundamental elements that helps to achieve a
high software adoption rate.
 If the majority of your organizations staff are technically
challenged there might be a longer learning curve and takes
more to get to a fully competent level.
 Once at this competent level, it results in gaining the most
benefits from healthcare policy management software.
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

3.  Technical problems that healthcare teams perceive may arise
from the removal of one system and implementation of another.
 The reality is that with the way most current software is designed,
swapping can usually be done with minimal interruption in terms of
accessibility and availability of policies.
 This is because during the transitioning period both software systems
can usually coexist. In this sense all the employees can keep referring to
the old policy management system even without knowing that a new
policy management system is coming into play.
 However, this scenario could become a little confusing for
certain staff members whom are continuously working on
policies to perform the more time consuming tasks of editing or
creating policies.
 During the period of coexistence it is essential that the content
producer/reviewer is well informed about the swapping and
properly trained to use the new policy management system.
COMMON CONCERNS

4.  Gradual: In this scenario the coexistence would happen for a
longer period of time and members of staff need to be well
informed as to where they would find each policy. This gradual
process can happen from department to department or by
location.
 On-Off Switch: In this case the transition would occur as quick
as a flip of switch for all Therefore it could create a period of
time where policies on the old system would be out of date
because they are being reviewed and transferred to the new
software.
TRANSITION PROCESS

5.  In both options the key is to time the swap properly so as to
have the least amount of negative impact.
 The recommended best practice would be option two as
option one usually creates the problem of employees staying
with what they are comfortable with and not necessarily
adopting what the new organizational norm will be.
 One of the features that many healthcare providers switching
policy management platforms find useful are import tools,
which can upload and set policies metadata based on a list of
files and a spreadsheet.
 After having the files extracted from the old system, and the
spreadsheet prepared, the import can be done in a matter of
hours. This is something to look for in your existing or
upcoming policy management software.
BEST PRACTICE

6.  Without doubt the biggest challenge in any software
implementation is the training.
 It can be frustrating to learn new systems but with
appropriate planning and training the new healthcare policy
management software can be picked up relatively easily as
many of the principles are the same.
 It is important to create a small communication plan aimed at
producing some excitement and buzz around the launch of the
new system.
 Communication to your staff is extremely important to get
them adopting the new policy management solution rapidly
and to create excitement.
 This is important because policy management software has complete
corporate visibility within the healthcare setting.
TRAINING

7.  So hopefully this gives you an idea of what to expect when
changing your healthcare policy management software.
 This can be a difficult and important decision.
 One final area that is hard to predict is the cooperation from
the policy management vendor you will be leaving.
 One tip is if you are at the stage of selecting policy management
solutions you can ask to speak to a reference client that is no longer
a customer of the vendor you are about to select.
 Ideally this would be a client that migrated away from the
policy management vendor you are about to select. As we all
know companies have had customers that have moved on for
various reasons. We have had a few at PolicyMedical over the
years.
WHAT TO EXPECT

8. If you would like to find out more about switching healthcare
policy management software contact us. Alternatively if you
would like to see PolicyMedical’s Policy Manager software in
action please request a demo at
http://policymedical.com/book-demo
THANK YOU

9. Policymedical.com