Four years ago, one very late evening, I was sitting with a
colleague of mine trying to come up with a plan for the unified communication
strategy. I remember my colleague turning to me and announcing that strategy
would be easy if things were not “traditional” in healthcare. Although
traditional hierarchies and processes are optimized for day-to-day business
they can’t handle the challenges of rapid change.
All information technology
departments are set up to handle the daily grime and support operations. After
much discussion, we decided to create a “shadow” system, devoted to the design
and implementation of strategy that is agile and operates under a different set
of processes and guidelines. This system would continually assess the needs of
the operation, industry and reacts with greater agility, speed and creativity. Harvard
Business Review in the November 2012 edition talk about the need for creating
this system within the organization to complement the “traditional” model.
IT
executives will have to create agility by forming a core team that is gathered
around initiatives. And this “agile” team comes together on demand and is not meant
to carry out orders from the leadership. Its members are change agents that bring
energy, commitment and enthusiasm. In
this ever-changing healthcare landscape, creating this “second” structure
within the traditional model requires a lot of IT maturity and something all
organizations to strive for.
