What’s the Next Big Thing in HIT?

Results versus relationships. Are the two mutually exclusive? Absolutely not, especially when one of the overarching goals of HIT project management is to develop and maintain relationships.

This is where some of the major players in the EHR field are failing. The larger EHR companies may have implemented enterprise EHRs in some of the larger health systems, however the lack of customer relationship management has caused their success quotient to decrease. What’s a success quotient, you ask? John Jantch, author of Duct Tape Marketing, defines it as “the value you create over the cost of the charge.”

In the case of the large EHR players, it can be stated as the level of customer satisfaction over the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the product. As the TCO of an EHR increases, even with customer satisfaction remaining unchanged, the company’s success quotient will decrease. But let’s face it, when the TCO of a product increases, customers usually begin to get pretty ornery. And the realities of the TCO of an EHR will only become more clear to hospitals and providers as the Meaningful Use money well dries up and they’re left footing the ownership bill. Couple the increasing TCO of EHR’s with poor customer relationships, and EHR company execs may find themselves spending increasing amounts of time conducting damage control. (Click here to read how Allscripts CEO, Glen Tullman, plans to improve customer satisfaction at his company.)

Obviously solutions that can easily interoperate and smart, intuitive user interfaces are some of the advancements on which EHR vendors must continue to concentrate. There is no doubt in my mind that we will get there. The evolution of information technology in any industry is always sloped upward towards increased innovation, more accelerated adoption and greater use. The healthcare industry is no exception.

However, a recent conversation with a practice administrator of a large anesthesiology group in Rochester, NY got me thinking about the future of HIT. During our discussion, she began to complain about her EHR vendor. “They’re just not responsive,” she stated, “When I call to ask if they could do something very specific and seemingly very simple to make our use of the system flow more smoothly, I was told no.”

I’ve heard similar stories of change requests falling into a “black hole.” As an HIT Project Manager, I can relate to the fact that when it comes to EHR’s, no change is simple. These are complex systems, and a change in something as simple as reconfiguring an input field on a medication form can have a profound effect on other areas of the system. However, telling your customers ‘No’ is akin to telling them that you don’t value their business. Simply not communicating with them is even worse.

Here is the point: if you value your customer’s expertise and experiences, they will trust you. And if they trust you, they will follow you and your technology. Even when your investors sue you.

So what’s the next big thing in HIT? Customer relationships, baby.