As the new Chief Executive Officer at the Head Injury Association (HIA) in 2005, Liz Giordano inherited many compliance issues from years of poor/no documentation for services provided.  Despite the situation Liz and her new Executive team found themselves in, they fought to turn around HIA and write a comeback story.  Part of the turnaround was finding a technology solution with stringent compliance and internal audit workflows.  After an exhaustive search with a third party consultant, Liz and her team found MediSked Connect to be the best choice and engaged MediSked to be their technology and compliance partner.  Seven years later, Head Injury Association is a benchmark provider for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) services in the Greater New York City area and has been growing so much they just opened up a new complex that houses their Administration as well as day programs.  Their comeback story is illustrative of what can happen with strong leadership, dedicated employees and a technology partner that understands the serious needs of their customers.

Software and human services.  Those two worlds haven't always coexisted together and for many providers, they still don't.  Working for a software company that serves provider agencies is a unique experience.  On one hand, you have your co-workers that are so passionate about serving our customers and technology.  It's kind of like working at the Genius Bar at an Apple store - random conversations about the latest servers or tablet are always popping up.  But at the same time, conversations about a billing rule in Indiana or a mall walk to support a customer are also going on.  It's cool to work at a tech company where, although everyone is geeky about technology, there's a strong human connection as well.  And that part is totally necessary when serving provider agencies across the country.  Because, unlike us, you most likely are not geeked about the latest blade servers that were released and don't get in arguments with co-workers about whether Google Glass is a fad.  Your focused on stuff that matters, helping others.  Technology is on the backburner in your lives.  So here we are, a tech company serving an industry that doesn't really like tech.  How can this possibly work?  Here are some things I've learned about how easily it does work.

There are a lot of factors and forces that come into play when making the switch to an Agency Management Platform.  One of the consistent forces is security and compliance.  This is not to say that you can't have a world class compliance and quality assurance program at your agency with manual and paper based methods.  You can and I've witnessed them firsthand.  But, compliance and QA goes beyond coming out of a clean audit.  While that's very important and software can absolutely help make that process more efficient, it's also important to look at the security of your clients' protected health information and private data that's only meant for the eyes of certain qualified employees.  So whether you just failed an audit and your manual methods are in disarray, or you run a tight ship and every 'i' is dotted and 't' crossed, there are still areas that a HIPAA compliant Agency Management Platform can help with.  Let's take a look.

The biggest mountain most providers face when implementing a technology that will replace manual processes, is the resistance to change that they will face with their staff.  Using technology in a provider agency doesn't always go together like peanut butter and jelly.  With the right technology, implementation strategy and executive leadership, that initial resistance usually melts away.  Resistance to change is totally normal and expected.  What's not good is if that resistance maintains or grows over time.  Taking a hammer to the computer, as pictured above, might be a little extreme, but the frustration that your employees feel is very real.  Remember, you didn't hire your staff to be experts on the computer.  You hired them to be caring, thoughtful, and responsible employees that you trust to take good care of your clients.  So employees will oftentimes feel threatened, anxious, and insecure of their job roles when technology becomes a part of it and they are not comfortable with technology.  It's your job during a transition to technology to nurture their learning and reinforce their value to your agency.  Here are some tips to overcome resistance.