When beginning a journey with Epic Community Connect, there are many different aspects that go into how it will be developed. Having a plan, or, a set of goals to achieve before starting your project can be a major factor in assuring that the process will go as smoothly as possible. Scott Jacobs, an Epic Community Connect specialist, discusses four key goals that you can set before beginning your project.
1. Develop a Strategic Plan
It is ill advised to go into this business without having a strategic goal in mind. While many organizations believe it is as simple as instructing their IT Director to get the job done, the reality is that implementing Epic Community Connect is a task that requires strategy. Starting a project such as this will require a significant amount of time, money, and resources, so having a strategic goal should be of paramount importance. This plan should not only revolve around IT, but should also include your clinical and community strategies for service delivery.
2. Set Your Goals and Define Your Product
Now that a plan has been put in place, it is time to define your product, and go to market with your goals and product in mind. In this phase, it is important to remember that you should offer the same product to every office you are in business with. For example, if you offer web, e-mail, or PACS to one office, make sure you offer it to every office. If you make differences in what you are offering to different offices, you set yourself up for problems in implementation, as well as service delivery and support.
3. Establish a Service Delivery Model
Any product that you service should follow the same model throughout your entire deployment. Through your operation, it should be clear exactly what product you are servicing, and who you plan on marketing it to. For this reason, it is important to not offer any services or programs you do not already have readily available. If you offer something you don’t already have in your office, such as Kaleidoscope, you’re setting yourself up for problems in the future.
4. Set up a Community Governance Model
It is important to have a governance model that allows for community physicians to be involved in your organization. More often than not, they will not be making any key decisions, but allowing them to be a part of the process to reach a solution can help you down the road. By allowing community physicians to be a part of your governance, they will be more likely to buy in to the organization, and will be more tightly aligned with you. It will also work to help make hard decisions easier to discuss.
By using these four key goals, you can set yourself up for success in your Epic Community Connect integration process before it even begins. Developing a plan can help you prepare for the integration, and by setting goals and defining your product, it is easier to avoid problems in implementation. Setting up a service delivery model can help clarify what products you are servicing, and setting up a governance model allows for local physicians to be on your team. All of these factors help to ensure that your integration process will go as smoothly as it possibly can.