Category Archives: What we think

Tips to Avoid the Consultant Trap

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Most businesses engage consultants to plug knowledge gaps and to gain expertise in planning, definition & specification and or in implementation of change in some way shape or form.

It is becoming increasingly prevalent for Australian business to be trapped in an ever-revolving door of consulting firms with little to no satisfaction around deliverables, accountability and measurable ROI.

Consultants generally are appraised and judged on a number of criteria YET there is a dangerous culture permeating Australian business and that is where loose briefs and requirements from the outset are being used to appoint consultants to deliver on a set of requirements.

The issue is one of ‘alignment’. While you are engaging consultants/vendors on the basis of resourcing/capacity issues, they are being engaged to deliver a pre-defined series of services which are output related. Where the ‘output’ or ‘requirements’ have not been properly teased out prior to engagement – this often results in a lack of ‘alignment’ and leads to discord in the engagement.

Digital Rehab prides itself in providing our valued clients with procurement and advisory services to help ensure any vendor – consultants or otherwise, receive a clear brief/ statement of work against which, they can be thoroughly assessed for competency, specialist knowledge and subject matter expertise and from which clear KPIs and expectations can be managed from the get-go. While the specifics of procurement can differ across industry sectors, business maturity and sophistication, the fundamentals do not.

Healthcare IT: Access to Capital to fund change

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Among some of the few sectors in the Australian economy which are on the up is Healthcare. It appears that revenues and profits from the Healthcare industry have continued to grow and appear to be immune, to a large extent by macroeconomic challenges facing the Australian economy.

The last 18 months have been tough for most sectors of the Australian economy. Revenue contractions, cost reduction efforts and continued “doom and gloom” media coverage has greatly impacted on the levels of and access to capital in Australia

In simple terms, people will always need medical services, devices and drugs and with an aging population, the need and reliance on the sector will only further intensify.

Given this climate, the healthcare sector is looking for new ways to improve and streamline processes. One such area that is in need of change is patient record management.

Over the past decade, eHealth has gained considerable media coverage and has become a critical element in the technical and strategic roadmap of both public and private hospitals, clinics and area services. Current software companies have products which have varying levels of suitability across the healthcare sector and the need will always be to strike a happy balance between clinician buy-in, support staff support and governance measures to enforce standardisation.

A recent National Investor Sentiment survey conducted by Wholesale Investor shows that investor appetite for healthcare sector exceeds that of the mining and energy sector. Hopefully with capital injection in small, nimble and innovative businesses, the healthcare sector will benefit from new products and services from which to draw upon further providing investors strong ROI and all the while increasing the efficiencies of the healthcare sector which plays a critical role in Australia’s social infrastructure.

Role, Purpose and importance of Good Governance models

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Good governance is the foundation by which a project pre and post delivery will be understood, leveraged by an organisation. The role and importance of good governance should not be underestimated.

While governance for most, can represent change and challenge the status-quo, it is necessary for any organisation who values consistency, efficiency and currency of information.

Governance ModelFrom experience, one of the fundamental hurdles that needs to be addressed upfront is the issue of ownership.

The decision around ‘who owns’ the project/system can impact on the most suitable governance framework.

Ownership of administration and process management is required to safeguard the investment made in on core business systems.

Governance can be split into:

  • Information Governance;
  • Technical Governance; and,
  • Project Governance.

Technical Governance, to a large extent is able to be managed using current business processes; however it is the Information and Project Governance that requires hands on management and preservation of quality and consistency.

In accordance with best practice around governance, I believe that organisations need to understand that for governance to be respected and adhered to, they need to make allowance for a new FTE who is responsible for the quality of content, process adherence, user access management and ongoing product development / enhancement work in line with business needs and growth requirements.

Big data: from the operating theatre

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Big Data has the potential to help solve many current day real-wold problems without being a panacea for every problem that is out there. It should become part of an organisation’s technical arsenal, providing the right solution when the problem is understood.

patient-data-management-systems

“Big Data” has arisen as the new ubiquitous term. Everyone is talking about Big Data and how their business is setup to manage the risks and opportunities.

For some time, I have worked in eHealth sector in Australia. Big Data is arguably one of the most pressing issues facing our health institutions.

The questions which need to be understood properly include:

  • What is Big Data?
  • What capabilities are required to keep up?
  • How do you use Big Data to make intelligent decisions?
  • How do you intend to effectively govern and secure huge volumes of information, while protecting privacy?
  • Perhaps most importantly, what value will it really deliver to the business and patients?

Big Data has the potential to transform our major hospitals, clinics and entire healthcare system. Hidden in the immense volume, variety and velocity of data that is produced today is new information, facts, relationships, indicators and pointers, that either could not be practically discovered in the past, or simply did not exist before. This new information, effectively captured, managed, and analysed, has the power to enhance profoundly the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of the provision of healthcare.

The great paradox is that, as Big Data emerges as a new resource, we struggle to keep pace.

We find it difficult to discover, understand, and leverage the information it contains, to find those true nuggets of knowledge that can improve the lives of everyday citizens and change the world. Although there is more data available, our ability to comprehend this data is reduced. The challenge lies in capturing the streams of Big Data that we need, effectively managing them, and extracting new and relevant insights.

The ability to continuously improve quality and efficiency in the delivery of healthcare while reducing costs remains an elusive goal for care providers and payers, but also represents a significant opportunity to improve the lives of everyday Australians. As of 2010, national health expenditures represent 17.9% of gross domestic product, up from 13.8% in 2000 in the US.

Coupled with this rise in expenditures, certain chronic diseases, such as diabetes, are increasing in prevalence and consuming a greater percentage of healthcare resources. The management of these diseases and other health-related services profoundly affects our nation’s well-being.

Big Data can help. The increased use of electronic health records (EHRs) coupled with new analytics tools presents an opportunity to mine information for the most effective outcomes across large populations. Using carefully de-identified information, researchers can look for statistically valid trends and provide assessments based upon true quality of care.

Value of offering Mobile Payments

What we think

Not so long ago, a mobile phone was for making calls, sending texts and not much more.

Over the last decade, the rise of the smartphones has changed the way we use our mobiles. This change has paved the way for a huge number of new opportunities and ways we can be connected while on the move – with stats showing most of us make payments and do banking increasingly from our mobiles.

PayPal has redesigned its mobile payments app, emphasizing features that make transactions easier and streamline purchases based on location (see video). In addition to offering $100 worth of in-store deals, the app lets you “order ahead and skip the line” at eateries, pay restaurant bills without engaging the server, and eliminate the credit card companies by opening a line of credit with local merchants.

See:

Such change can offer up new commercial opportunities for new businesses to seize on the simplicity and power of mobile payment functionality.

Unlock the value of your company Intranet

What we think

This article looks to detail why intranet’s generally fail to receive the importance they should and possible approaches that can be taken to overcome these hurdles.

Intranet’s play a critical role in internal communications YET are rarely given the importance and proper planning required in order for them to be of most value.

The ingredients for successful deployment of an intranet, in my estimation include:

  • Get CEO or MD to be project sponsor – this provides weight to the project and will serve to break down the walls that will be otherwise be erected around those who are reluctant to change
  • Leave politics out of it – too often due to lack of ownership, Intranet projects become fiercely political
  • Broad consultation with end users – in order to deliver something that will be widely applauded and used by end users, you must bring a cross section of end users into the consultation process
  • Clear and detailed governance framework – there are a number of divergent views around governance but whatever your coulis, having a suitable governance structure in place is of fundamental importance
  • Create structured content – you need to clearly class your assets and arrange a hierarchy for content as this will inform permissions, management and ongoing periodic reviews
  • Have a migration plan – content is the single most important aspect of a successful intranet.
  • Allow sufficient time for change to be absorbed by the business – rolling out a new intranet can represent sizeable change for any organisation. Ensure sufficient time has been set aside for the consultation with key stakeholders and end users, migration of content, implementation and digestion of new governance framework and for training.
  • The worst thing you can do is rush the implementation and rollout as this will greatly degrade the value and will threaten take up and usage of the new intranet.
  • Create training packs to help transition users – ensure supporting documents be they job aids, ‘how to’ guides, workflow diagrams etc to provide an easy access point for end users to refer to prior to Digital Rehab’s team of consultants have delivered over 15 intranets most recently for Coates Hire in 2013.

Responsive Design versus app development

What we think

Principal Consultant & Owner of Digital Rehab, Alisdair Blackman speaks to CIO’s Andrew Birmingham on responsive design.

As increasingly tech savvy users are demanding more from digital, it is becoming difficult for business and IT functions to grapple with the best mode around how best to satisfy these demands taking heed of ‘enterprise’ level architectural considerations.

Business requirements focus typically on rapid delivery of capability into customers/clients/partners and ‘first to market’ imperatives while IT requirements looks to enterprise data model, solution design, hardware, user management, security (and other) factors.

IT departments are increasingly required to deliver services out to the mobile Web, but in circumstances under which they have no control or even certainty over the types of devices being used by staff and customers to view content. In order to ensure that the user experience is not compromised by the choice of device or the form factor of the screen IT departments are increasingly turning to development approaches like responsive Web design to deliver more ubiquitous, lower cost outcomes than can be achieved with native apps across multiple mobile operating systems like iOS Android and BlackBerry.

Read CIO article titled: “Using responsive design to lower build and support costs”