JRMWEBSPACE

Project Talk - Communication, Communication, Communication

Here is another semi regular post on my observations while being a tech lead on the implementation team of an OR system.

It has been said that many projects fail because of the lack of communication/organizational. While, this project is no where near meeting its demise, it has met what I would call its first communication speed bump. To get back on track meetings were called, issues were discussed and hopefully we have a better understanding of what is needed to keep the communications lines open and flowing.

The take away here is don't always take the academic approach to project management communication. Be ready to adjust communication methods on the fly. I am learning to make sure to communicate early and communicate often.

Dinner: An Oxymoron?

Natural enemies on one plate.

View of flowers from our backyard

It is spring in California. This is a shot of our flowers in the backyard. While there is much work to do in the yard, it is nice to have the established trees and flowers.

Mother Dove

Our doves looks to have finally made a proper nest. Last season they did not do so well. From the looks of it the mother dove hopes to have babies soon. I will keep you informed.

Cool Things: IdeaPaint whiteboard paint

This is cool. I am thinking on checking this out for the home office.

IdeaPaint

Project Talk - What I learned last week?

I am taking a lead tech role on a new project implementing a comprehensive OR system.

What did I learn this week? You are only as good as your supplier. Even when when you try to make sure that you request and order the correct parts, if you are not shipped the correct parts you still just as bad off as if you ordered the wrong parts in the first place.

Replacement parts were sent and recieved with the supplier picking up the costs. However, the damage was done. Extra work and time was needed to make up for supplier's mistake.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - Health Information Technology

As I was reading the ARRA Health Information Technology section a couple of things came to mind.

1) Legal-ease is all about run-on sentences. Use more periods! I can then take a breath more often.

2) Really, this is going to fail if decisions are not made quickly and soon about the standards for securely exchanging content from one entity to another.

I am not the only one who this thinking of this idea of uniform standards in data exchanges, John Halamka talks about this in this recent blog post.

I would like to hope that the EMR software companies realize to not make the barrier to set up the data exchanges between competing systems so costly that even with the ARRA incentives it will not be worth it for hospitals/clinics to pursue this needed information technology modernization and health information exchange.

Playing in my Zen Garden

So it was a great non-rainy weekend and I really needed to do yard work. My yard is a rock garden that needs to be redone...Read there are a lot of weeds and grass. But, while some would think of that as a bad thing; I think of it as a Zen thing. I start with the iPod listening to good music, get on my hands and knees, and start picking the weeds. I find comfort in picking the weeds. It gets me to relax and stop thinking about work. It is a nice temporary escape.

What is your escape?

More IT or Reduce Paperwork?

At a dinner party last weekend celebrating my Fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, Founder's Day, conversation topics ranged from fraternity business to politics. One comment got me thinking. To paraphrase:

"If I didn't have to do so much paperwork, I would continue to work for many more years"-said by a long time Nurse to another Nurse.

As someone who is in health care IT, I could argue that the answer is just more IT systems eliminating the paper. With the current economic benefits found in the stimulus plan for health care IT that may not be such a bad idea. But, to put in any IT system with the idea to replace/reduce paper sometimes is not as easy as it sounds. I find that people would like to get rid of paper with technology, but don't want to learn new systems. There is just not enough "buy-in" by the actual users of the in IT system.

I often wonder would if it be better to take a two prong approach. First, reduce unneeded paperwork. Then, consider what IT systems could replace paper.

Regardless we must have the users of the IT systems to 'buy-in" and want to make the change. Everyone will have to get out of their comfort zone and realize that in order to make their dream of less paper one will have to learn how to use the new technology.

Take a chance

Sometimes it is great and needed to take a chance. That was just such a time for me Sunday. I went to pyramid brew pub. While having a beer I thought that I would take a chance and talk to a regular that I have seen a few times before. I am glad that I did. It was a great and interesting conversation. So take a chance and you never know what might happen.