Before You Buy a New System …

In explaining behavioral and social change, the concept of positive deviance contends there are people whose uncommon, but successful, behaviors or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers, despite having no special resources or knowledge.

In many situations and, in particular, healthcare organizations, all that is needed to make life-saving changes is right in front of us.

The role of CIO 2.0 is to see it and/or see it differently: whether it is process transformation, using an existing technology a little differently or just using our current investments to their fullest. It is a common fact that we only use an extremely small percentage of the functionality in office automation software. Despite this, we continue to invest (waste) untold millions in the latest version and by deploying more software with every new PC/laptop purchase. I would argue that this is true of many of our clinical/business applications, bio medical and diagnostic solutions, and many more products within our organizations.

For example, in 2006, we purchased the industry leading PACS (imaging repository) solution. Its intended use was only radiology studies. Despite challenging the vendor to use the same solution for other specialties, specifically cardiology, pathology, trauma/OR images, we were told, “No,” and/or, “It would take years.” After challenging our IT staff to make the same solution work for CV, they did it at no additional cost, while it was made clear to use that an outside solutions would cost millions of dollars and years to develop.

Again, we looked at the same solution for digital pathology. Vendor response: “Maybe, it’ll cost between $500,000 and $1.5 million.” Same outcome: IT staff used existing solutions with some off-the-shelf equipment and (proof!!!) digital pathology for less than $10,000.

There are millions (maybe even billions) of dollars buried in poorly utilized solutions, inefficient processes and unnecessary expenses/purchases waiting for healthcare leaders to unearth. They are literally right in front of us. All we must do is open our eyes.