Strategic IT Planning for a Hospice Provider
Services: Strategic Information Systems Planning
The Challenge
A multi-site, regional hospice organization had a custom developed, web-based system in place for nearly a decade that supported patient intake, billing and some point-of-care clinical functions. With a growing need to automate clinical and operational functions, the organization was faced with the decision whether to extend the customized system into a fully functioning EMR through additional custom development, or to integrate the existing modules with other systems. There was also discussion about making this custom solution available as commercial software to other hospice organizations.
Cumberland was engaged to help achieve organizational consensus regarding the current hospice market for clinical management software and the appropriate next steps relative to their HIT investments.
Cumberland’s Approach
Cumberland developed a three-year strategic IT plan which included a comprehensive assessment of the hospice soft- ware marketplace, a functional and technical review of the current custom system and a list of fact-based alternatives for the organization to consider.
Project Objectives
- Understand the underlying philosophies within the hospice executive team regarding management of past and future IT investments
- Establish an in-depth picture of the current state of the customized system, the technology infrastructure, current capabilities for system development and ongoing maintenance
- Clearly document the business requirements for a hospice electronic medical record
- Perform objective assessments of the alternatives: custom development, package implementation or hybrid approaches
- Provide market expertise regarding the strengths and weaknesses of particular vendors, industry trends and our experiences with particular software development and maintenance approaches
- Present clear, concise and fact-based alternatives, along with the associated opportunities and challenges to the organization’s executive team
Results
As result of this work, it was determined that an enterprise integrated software package was the more efficient and economical solution. The hospice provider successfully implemented a package enterprise system and is currently launching an organization-wide optimization initiative. Cumberland was subsequently engaged to manage the vendor Selection, implementation and optimization projects.