Summary: As a healthcare provider, upgrading workflows, creating visibility into data, and improving the patient experience sounds like a dream come true. The work behind making these dreams a reality is more complex than it usually appears. 

As project managers who’ve been around the block a few times in the healthcare world, we’ve seen the complexity in these healthcare technology implementations firsthand. In this article, we’re diving into some of the primary pain points that will make or break your implementations.

Pain Point #1: Stakeholder Handoffs Are Disjointed

Implementations are rarely siloed to a single department. They usually impact a broad range of people from IT, clinical, finance, compliance — even some vendors. When you don’t have a clear understanding of who the stakeholders are, and how the handoffs should work, you end up getting stuck in approval loops (a common culprit of schedule delays).

When we managed the integration of a new EMR for M2 Orthopedics, this was a key piece of our strategy when coordinating across multiple locations and running up against a tight deadline.

Pain Point #2: Data Risks

The later you are in a healthcare technology implementation, the more data integrity issues that tend to surface. When transitioning systems, organizations often fail to realize how much effort is required to catalog, validate, and reconcile data.

This is why having not only a project manager, but a seasoned healthcare project manager, is essential. They’ll understand how far reaching proactive data risk assessments should be. They’ll bring this into the early discovery calls and ensure they aren’t overlooked during testing. For M2 Orthopedics, these prevented post-launch disruptions and lead to a 97% provider satisfaction rate post launch.

 Integration Isn’t Just Technical—It’s Organizational.

For good reason, healthcare orgs often underestimate integrations as being a technical undertaking. And from reading this article, you likely agree that it sounds highly technical.

While the act of integration itself is technical, the success of an integration depends on:

• Business process mapping: for automations to work efficiently, everyone must understand each step in the process and eliminate inefficiencies.
• Change management: to ensure that once the implementation is completed, healthcare payers are using the integration as intended.
• Cross-functional coordination: integrations don’t only for payers. It impacts customer service, IT, compliance, and more.

Pain Point #3: Lack of Ownership Post-Launch

The technical deployment of healthcare technology tends to capture most of the team’s attention. Without strong change management, organizations can experience low utilization, frustration, and resistance post launch. 

Implementation project managers are trained on creating repeatable adoption frameworks to educating the right groups on how to work within the system, addressing edge cases, and making sure the entire organization feels supportive. 

Pain Point #4: Internal Teams Are Stretched Thin Already

Healthcare organizations aren’t new to operating with limited resources. While adding on a complex implementation project is intended to ease resource strain, the act of integrating adds to an already heavy workload. 

Dedicated project management support proactively addresses this to curb burnout, monitor scope creep, and keep quality intact. M2 Orthopedics was able to relieve resource strain by letting us manage the integration and ModMed, their vendor. 

The Bottom Line 

Healthcare companies want faster, smoother projects. But there’s a misconception that the new shiny tool on the block will fix the majority of their project woes. You can have the most expensive tool on the market, but without the proper infrastructure, you’re going to hit walls. 

Project management accounts for the people, processes, and risks overlooked in the traditional rollout and post-launch process. 

Our group of U.S. based, remote consultants help organizations navigate complex implementations. Whether you’re looking for a new EMR, revenue cycle management platform, or point solution integration — having an expert on your side reduces resource strain, ensures faster time-to-value, and ensures better utilization post-launch. 

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