The following is a guest article by Jeff Lusby, General Manager, Healthcare IT at Quest Diagnostics
As healthcare organizations come to terms with value-based care, many are hitting the wall of unstructured clinical and administrative data. Why? Frequently, efforts to digitize content are compartmentalized, when they need to be linked across departments. Well-informed health information management (HIM) and healthcare information technology (HCIT) professionals are recognizing enterprise content management (ECM) as an opportunity to re-energize and move forward with improved performance.
What is Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?
According to the Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM), ECM is the
“systematic collection and organization of information that is to be used by a designated audience – business executives, customers, etc. Neither a single technology nor a methodology nor a process, it is a dynamic combination of strategies, methods, and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver information supporting key organizational processes through its entire lifecycle.
- Capture: boils down to entering content into the system
- Manage: what you do next to it, so it can be found and used by whomever it is intended for
- Storing: means finding it an appropriate home in your infrastructure, be it a formal content management system or other information solution
- Preserve: refers to long-term care – archiving, if you will – the practice of protecting it so it can be utilized however far into the future the organization needs it to be available
- Deliver: is all about putting the information in the right people’s hands right when they need it to be there.”
Many healthcare organizations need to refresh strategies and governance policies for managing content. But why just manage it? Employing an enterprise content management system can take strategy and data to the next level—it can activate it with transactional content management. In this way, processes focus on not just capturing content but using it to help drive actions and insights for decision-making.
Building a Business Proposal for an ECM System
HIM and HCIT professionals eager to adopt an ECM system should first consider justifying the opportunity through the development of a business proposal. This exercise can provide the clarity of scope, time investment, cost, and benefits necessary for executive leaders to assess the value and viability of ECM. It will also highlight the fundamental components of an ECM system that allows you to scan, track, manage, store, and search content.
Read our whitepaper, Developing a Business Proposal for Enterprise Content Management, to help you prepare by providing a roadmap for development with best practices along the way.
Assembling an ECM Dream Team
The process of selecting and implementing an ECM system can be daunting. Some healthcare organizations may find it difficult to discern who should be involved and who is best suited to lead the process. Read our whitepaper, Leading Enterprise Content Strategy with HIM, to help you better understand the value that various stakeholders within your organization can bring to this process. We’ll also provide insight into the potentially untapped value that HIM leaders can contribute to the decision-making and implementation of an ECM system. Further, you can gain a greater understanding of the differences between HIM and HIT, and how their roles and responsibilities best fit into the adoption of ECM.
Finding the Right System to Complement Your Strategy
An enterprise content management system can help healthcare organizations go beyond simply storing data to making it possible to truly realize the potential that is inherent in these data. The right solution can be used strategically to access data to meet organizational goals, such as improved care, enhanced patient experiences, and reduced costs. That’s why it’s so important to choose the right vendor, whether selecting this technology for the first time or making a switch.
For practical tips on choosing the right ECM, try 10 things to look for in an enterprise document management vendor, for a practical guide to choosing an ECM system.
Activating Your Strategy and Your Content
With an ECM system and your dream team in place, opportunities to activate your content abound! Aim for content nirvana with an ECM that intelligently captures content and delivers it where users need it. Seamlessly integrated content can help organizations go from meeting objectives to exceeding them. And it is not reserved for new content only. ECM systems can help with archived data that may need a new home for increased security and access.
Activate your strategy to achieve your goals with ECM—build your proposal, assemble your dream team, and create an action plan to win. And place your confidence in Quest Diagnostics and Quanum Enterprise Content Solutions to help you succeed.
About Jeff Lusby
With more than 27 years in healthcare IT, Jeff has extensive experience with technology implementations from the sales journey to installation, support, and account management. In his current role as general manager, Jeff leads the Quanum Enterprise Content Solutions software business that serves the healthcare IT community with enterprise document and content management solutions and services. Jeff leads with a focus on process improvement and automation to bring organizations operational efficiency and maximum return on investment. Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Cincinnati.
Quest Diagnostics is a proud sponsor of Healthcare Scene.
