Cloud Services
Our Summer Checkup
We are past halfway through the year and, while I have an internal version of this blog post that’s tailored for our employees—and full of our jargon—I thought there’s a lot to share with our external audiences, too.
Based on the original plan and goals, we will NOT cross the finish line on time and this is a WONDERFUL thing. We have been cooking with gas and our work has been terrific! Some of that terrific work has been so because it has resulted in huge successes.
For example: DIY gear for both us and our CLIENTS! Our iFolks were in the offices over a weekend earlier this summer to sit vigil on our latest update release… and out popped a baby athenaClinicals, our EHR! It will be in beta for a while, but it is running happily in its iPhone crib. I literally got an email from a grown physician that started with “OMG!”
Futhermore, if we go to General Availability status on every project we have in beta, we estimate that it will result in a major reduction of held claims work for clients.
Now, you don’t get REAL success without coming up short every so often, and we’ve done a bit of that, too.
Care coordination is freakin’ hard. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Senders (practices submitting orders) only care about athenaCoordinator if there are a lot of receivers (hospitals and labs) ready to pay for their efforts. Receivers only care if there are a lot of SENDERS! We haven’t yet cracked the code on getting both going together, but we have learned a ton, like:
- Use the app to promote the behavior you want
- Start in smaller communities, then work your way up
- Respect the fact that two hospitals in the same market are COMPETING
Also, diverting some wind from our sails is the notion of rules in all five stages of a practice workflow. We have launched a huge re-think of the user experience for docs, but it is so fundamental that all of it is still deeply in utero. Chances of real evidence of success this year… light.
Then there’s the notion of a game layer for the five key roles in an athenaNet practice. We dabbled at our last User Conference but haven’t followed through with continuous scoring, encouragement, rewards, etc. We need the business intelligence team at Anodyne to break us out of our static Practice Performance Review (PPR) technology and mindset so that the games can truly begin. Have you ever seen Anodyne in action? It’s wonderful! (Check out this client video.)
My biggest learning on all three of these reddish projects is that the really hard stuff needs intensive continuous focus from MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS at the same time. It’s uncomfortable, because it creates internal tension, but I think that tension forces better and faster refinement.
That said, this has been a great start to a great year. Shoot me any questions and feedback and I will do my best to respond. Thanks for reading!
Athena is doing a lot of things right and I’m glad your corporate culture is one of openness to change. However, some changes are being made so quickly that I feel focus is diverted from your collector product which has become slightly stagnant. Please don’t forget your roots.
The CSC wait times have increased as have response times to CRM cases (like the one I have open from September 2011). However, I feel the ability of the CSC to answer questions on an initial call has improved in the last 12-24 months.
My impression (as a client since 2005)is that athenistas need more cross training and knowledge of “the other products” – collector staff need to be familiar with clinicals & communicator & coordinator. I’ve also felt an information overload from athena. You do so much to educate us on changes (which is good), but can result in me quickly clicking away from the athenanet homepage.
I loved the idea of your team taking over the fax sorting for us when we implemented clinicals, but that hasn’t been as successful as I’d hoped. Too many things are routed to the provider. (Imagine if every unknown fax from your office was set on your desk to sort). It also takes too long for items to be classified and creates “double work” for our staff when they need access to a more urgent fax. (They can view it, but not route it, so they have to come back to it later, sometimes 3-4 hours later, and route it at that time).
I’d also love for my surgery center to be able to use the coordinator product. We’re a physician owned center and work with independent surgeon’s offices. Our ASC would pay to ease the burden on these offices. It seems you’ve realized that coordinator has to start in smaller communities. How about smaller practices – i.e. ASC’s instead of hospitals? ASC’s excel in efficient care and we’d love to help our independent physician’s offices save costs and work so they may remain independent. Our area hospitals just tell the independent doc’s that they’ll coordinate their care – the doc’s just have to use EPIC.
I appreciate that athena likes to think big. However, sometimes you have to start small to perfect your product and be able to sell it to the masses.
Amy,
Girlfriend, you are so right. (Sorry for the delay)
athenaClinicals has been growing by over 100% per year for five years, and we just flat out got behind on client support. The number of folks in our Client Support Center (CSC) who have earned our highly trained “Jedi” status was way too low in Q2 and Q3. We have been hiring and training like mad, BUT they are such valuable folks that they keep getting poached by Account Management, Professional Services, and athenaCare. In mid-September and early October we FINALLY got the drop on the hiring/training challenge. I think the CSC wait time will soon be back down around the 60-second mark where it belongs…AND with people who can actually answer your questions. Also, our “click to call” program is FINALLY (after many delays) getting ready to roll out! Starting soon, when you call the CSC from a phone that is registered with us, we will know who you are, what page you are on, and what CSC folks you have spoken to in the past and will attempt to pick up instantly in that vein without you having to explain anything. That will make about 30% better use of the CSC and your time…and make those massively trained Jedi go a lot further.
Also, we are creating athenaUniversity! We will be consolidating new hire orientation, skill-set-improvement training, and leadership development into one place. If we want to be a gathering of the best teachers and learners in health care, we have to be best in the world at training folks. We are good, but not best in the world, and, next year, we hope you’ll feel a real change as this new consolidated business unit kicks in.
Thanks for your candor. You were right to speak out and should know it is really seriously on our radar.