7 Habits for Effectively Leading Healthcare Interoperability Initiatives
What Every CIO, CTO, and Healthcare IT Professional Should Know
Overview
In 1989, Stephen Covey, a patriarch in motivating individuals and organizations to achieve success in becoming better leaders and even better humans, published a little known book entitled the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Of course this powerful guide to achieving one’s best became a best-seller because of its effective principles that could be applied, no matter the individual, to achieve one goal—success in life!
Like Covey’s 7 Habits for effective people, guided principles and a singular focus can be applied to the world of healthcare interoperability. This may seem like a stretch, but like Covey’s 7 Habits, it is essential to become effective in delivering a connected healthcare community. This connected community is often referred to as interoperability.
The demand to connect organizations – clinics, hospitals, labs, radiology practices – as well as medical devices and healthcare software applications is rising exponentially. Being effective in delivering on the promise of integrated healthcare is critical.
Using the 7 Habits as a guide, we will explore how they can be applied to achieving healthcare interoperability.
7 Habits
1. Be Proactive
2. Begin with the End in Mind
3. Put First Things First
4. Think Win/Win
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the Saw
Setting the Effective Habit Stage
Part of the concept in Mr. Covey’s 7 Habits is moving from being dependent to independent to interdependent. By following the 7 Habits, people or organizations can move up the spectrum. From the beginning, habits 1 through 3 move you from a dependent state to an independent approach.
After you have made that transition, the foundation is in place to become interdependent with the people and organizations with whom you will create your connected healthcare community. Habits 4 through 6 guide your interactions towards gaining greater interdependence with key partners. Finally, Habit 7 encourages continuous improvement.
In the world of healthcare interoperability, this paradigmatic model applies well. To achieve healthcare interoperability, healthcare interfaces or integration is a necessary step to move in that direction. Many healthcare providers (e.g., hospitals, radiology practices, laboratories, clinics, etc.) and vendors are reliant on doing things the same old way. Their solutions are static at best with thoughts like “It’s tough and it’s expensive,” or “It takes too long,” and “We can only send patient data this way,” or “We can only receive patient data that way.”
Whether valid or invalid, these are concerns based out of dependency on old ways. An underlying idea throughout Covey’s 7 Habits is progression – continual forward motion to perform better and achieve more. In practice, to move from a state of healthcare interfacing dependency to healthcare interdependence, let Covey’s 7 Habits serve as a guide to make your transition to healthcare interoperability a success.
Habit 1: Be Proactive
The proactive habit can be applied in multiple ways to foster healthcare interoperability.
Flexibility in Data Transformation
First, there are multiple applications or healthcare providers that require patient information to be communicated in a specific data format. Each vendor or provider, of course, believes that their format should be the one followed. Consequently, one could be reactive and just wait for the other vendor or provider to change the way they accept or send patient data; however, doing this results in a stalemate.
The better approach would be to act in a flexible manner and transform the data in the middle to the different specifications. An added benefit to this approach is the ability to implement a best-of-breed application approach, since the differing data formats can be transformed easily in the middle.
Leveraging Engine Technology
Second, working with other application vendors or medical device manufacturers can be a restraining experience. Waiting for point-to-point interfaces to be developed, delivered, and tied to their queues can be frustrating. Being proactive can be liberating. By leveraging interface engine technology, independence from various vendors can be gained while delivering healthcare interfaces to your customers in a more timely fashion.Regional and Community Initiatives
Third, there are several regional or community based initiatives which are driving RHIOs or other healthcare interoperability efforts. Similarly, the Federal government has dedicated resources and issued directives around a more integrated healthcare system. Why do anything? Let the agencies and communities drive it. Although that is a possible approach to take, it is clearly a reactive one and may result in more pain later.
Organizations that take the initiative and are proactive in connecting with their departments or referring physician communities are realizing benefits today. From saving dollars with more efficient processes to increasing revenues by offering a better way to interact, the proactive approach can have a positive impact today while also offering a direction for struggling community initiatives.
IT Service
Finally, another proactive approach to healthcare interfacing is the way IT service levels are delivered. The reactive approach is to claim ignorance, because the monitoring capabilities are not available. The best proactive approach is to be alerted when an interfacing parameter has not met a defined threshold, and you receive a page or email with the change in status. Essentially, with this approach, you are the first to know and the first to respond.
By being proactive in healthcare integration, the end result is:- Adaptability – being flexible to adapt to the various data requirements
- Independence – removing total reliance on others to achieve your objectives
- Satisfaction – delivering responsive customer service
With a proactive mindset and approach, the move from being dependent to being interdependent begins.
________________________________________________________________________To download a complete verison of 7 Habits for Leading Healthcare Interoperability, follow the PDF link below.
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