Selecting vendors for HIT transformation: A case study
BOSTON--Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) achieved $20-$40 million in annual savings due to workflow redesign. Finding the appropriate vendors to partner with on achieving its health IT transformation goals propelled this success, said Hugh Hale, CIO of VNSNY, at mHealth + Telehealth World 2014 on July 23.
As a former IBM executive, Hale has been on both sides of the fence in such transactions. In his role at VNSNY, he sought vendors as partners that shared its vision of patient care.
“We’re a very mission-based company. Our mission is to take care of patients of New York and we’re very community based,” he said. VNSNY handles 35,000 daily visits, with 70,000 patients under its care every day. “We’re truly integrated. In 2013, we made over 2.2 million home visits.”
About 18 months ago, VNSNY embarked on its three-year IT transformation plan, he said. It established several goalposts it hoped to achieve, including an integrated care delivery system to replace a variety of legacy systems and new tablets, new solutions, more efficient documentation and real-time data synching.
Hale laid out its approach to getting the technology right. First, he stressed the importance of being vulnerable to the vendor community, so they are aware of organizational weaknesses and strengths that they would have to operate under. He listed several of VNSNY's approaches:
- Casting the net wide for prospective vendors
- Using third-party data sources and advisors for decision making
- Conducting proper due diligence
He stressed involving others within the organization on the decision-making process.
“We screen vendors more in depth than when we hire employees,” he said. In addition to an extensive interview process, a selected team of 25 nurses field-tested tablets. The process was not quick, he said. “It took 8 months,” he said. But the patience was well worth it, as “now they are the biggest advocates.”
VNSNY has sent out clinicians on field trips to visit companies to see if they can accomplish what is needed and to determine if they are a good fit. The clinicians also are regularly asked to vet tools.
Past relationships with old vendors shouldn’t necessarily drive new purchasing decisions. Hale even decided against choosing IBM and his former colleagues for VNSNY projects due to the company’s lack of experience in the healthcare space--and the plain fact they weren't a good fit.
Having end-users share in the decision-making process helps narrow down the best vendor for the job. “Shared governance is key,” he said.