To consistently achieve these outcomes, RoundTable has consciously built consulting teams with healthcare IT professionals that have previous operations experience within the departments they support.

During a recent Epic inpatient financial conversion, we engaged a Hospital Billing Analyst Consultant who had been a Business Office Supervisor prior to her Epic consulting career. This ensured healthcare cash operations workflow expertise and allowed her to understand and optimally communicate end-user processes while working on the client’s conversion. We also engaged a Project Manager Consultant who had previously been an OR Business Manager for a Cerner Operating-Room module (SurgiNet) conversion. This allowed him to better interface with clinicians and operational leadership when working through their complex conversion needs as they shifted from paper to Cerner SurgiNet. While these are just a few recent examples, similar engagements yielding similar value echo consistently through our rich previous body of work.

Particularly within the patient care setting, a Systems Analyst or Principal Trainer possessing previous clinical experience will leverage that knowledge to optimally work with providers and execute project deliverables. We asked one of our Senior Epic Cardiology / Radiology Analysts to explain her personal perspective on the Operations-to-IT advantage.

Senior Epic Cupid / Radiant Analyst – Over 15 years of Healthcare and Healthcare IT Experience

Question: How many years did you serve as a Cardiology RN?

Answer: I worked on the Progressive Care Unit and ICU/CCU/MICU for about 10 years. I moved to the Cath lab/IR lab and Holding area for 2 years. Then I was asked to work in the Cardiovascular testing area. During this time I also worked with our Medical Center and went live with them on Epic at four campuses.

Question: What made you transition to Healthcare IT?

Answer: When the hospital decided to move to Epic, they approached me since I had worked with Epic and the majority of the cardiovascular areas. I decided to try it and loved it.

Question: What was the biggest challenge during the transition?

Answer: There were two. One was sitting so much. The other was learning the IT and Epic languages.  My first IT meeting I left feeling like I was in way over my head.  I barely understood anything they had discussed.

Question: What are the benefits of having the relevant field work and operational experience prior to your career in Healthcare IT?

Answer: My clinical and IT experience allows me to bridge the gap between IT and Operations. I am able to relate and translate, in order to create a better understanding all around.

While RoundTable has many differentiators, bringing immediately relevant experience and understanding to each engagement, is of the upmost importance to us. For the past eight years our firm has demonstrated success in system conversion, upgrade, and system enhancement projects nationwide. During that time, we have consistently validated the value in building consulting teams who truly understand the operational areas they support.

The post Professional Transitions: From Clinical Operations to Healthcare IT and Why it Works appeared first on RoundTable Strategic Solutions.

STEP ONE:  Assessing the need

Our clients hiring challenges:

A robust assessment of our clients’ needs provides the initial framework for ensuring the candidate will make a good match. We consider our clients pain points and the specific hard and soft skills to remediate them:

• Outside of the job descriptions, what do you need this person to accomplish?
• Specific experience and qualifications/certifications
• What other important qualities must they possess?

What our client offers to attract the top talent (intangibles):

In order to attract the best talent, our employers need to identify and communicate the intangible appeal of working with them.  The client must know what they can offer and what they can gain for a mutually beneficial engagement.

• Strong leadership/leadership structure
• Ability to have an impact and recognition
• Professional growth
• Exposure to new technology and resources
• Degree of, and approach to innovation
• Diverse tolerances for onsite versus remote presence

STEP TWO: Finding the “best of the best, not the best of the unemployed candidates”

We are committed to understanding our candidates’ full capabilities, including their intangible skills, toward making a lasting and positive impact to client projects. Throughout the process, we consider:

• Our pre-existing network, for contacts we are certain possess a skill set aligning with our clients’ goals
• Net-new recruitment, for vetting consultants outside of our network but whose skill sets may be compatible with our clients’ goals
• Lessons learned from hands-on strategy and optimization, for consultants, thought leaders and subject matter experts who know how to apply their experiences
• Our candidates’ vision for the opportunity, their capabilities and accomplishments, their commitment and follow through, and ability to work in the respective client’s setting
• Full understanding of what they are seeking tangibly and intangibly for their next career opportunity
• The outcome of our in-depth conversations and supervisory references
• The challenges in travel, relocation, and compensation for all candidates

STEP THREE: Cost reduction

By utilizing our pool of both consultants and FTEs, our clients can reduce consulting fees and increase knowledge retention at project conclusion.

• $3 Million, the amount we saved one client by recruiting and hiring 15 FTEs, replacing the need for 15 additional consultants over an 18-month implementation; 14 of the 15 were still employed with health system two years later
• Millions more can be saved long term throughout the optimization and support phase – the knowledge learned from the implementation stays internally — significantly reducing the need for consultants after Go-Live for optimization and support
• To view the case study outlining $3 million in cost savings, click here

STEP FOUR:  Maintaining the client relationship

Clients rely on our talent pool for additional support, project extensions, and future engagements.

• 95%, the percentage of clients who have extended with us, requested additional support over the past three years
• “The team at RoundTable has become a true extension of our health system.  By consistently sharing top-notch FTEs and consultant resources, we are reaping the benefits of their network of highly qualified talent. Our partnership has evolved over the years, and we rely solely on their team of experts to share their strategic guidance with resource selection, saving our health system millions of dollars.  As we continue to expand our utilization of Epic and interrelated technology platforms, we are working with RoundTable for new projects, extensions and additional support.  We are confident in their team and look forward to working together to offer the best experience for our patients and providers, while maximizing our ROI on our technology investment.” – IT Director, mid-Atlantic health system

Gain more knowledge about the RoundTable’s recruiting approach, our team and services by clicking here or visit our recent blog, Learn From Our Leaders: 8Qs with Lauren Rosenthal, Director of Recruitment and Delivery.

The post The Right Candidate Yields Client Success appeared first on RoundTable Strategic Solutions.

“Recruiting the right person is something you enjoy, not just a job. It’s about getting to really know a person and build a relationship with them,” says Lauren Rosenthal, Director of Recruitment and Delivery for RoundTable Strategic Solutions.  With more than 13 years of healthcare recruitment experience, Lauren is driven towards understanding and addressing the multi-faceted and evolving challenges facing healthcare delivery systems. She leverages in-depth knowledge of healthcare clinical, revenue cycle, and support operations and application tools to identify Consultants and Interim Leaders who are equipped to positively impact clients’ operational and financial performance and clinical outcomes.

According to a survey from the American Staffing Association, healthcare industry positions held eight of the top 10 spots of the most difficult occupations to fill. Recruiters in the healthcare IT and management industry are experiencing that challenge with the influx of job needs and the lack of aligning talent to fulfill the needs.

RoundTable has maintained an exceptional level of client satisfaction and 99% loyalty rate with our candidates and consultants.  Lauren shares some of her thoughts on what makes the best recruitment process, and how open and value-driven communication is key to a recruiter/candidate’s relationship.

What are the general steps in the recruitment process?

In general terms, the steps to our recruitment process are a consistent cycle of:

1. Identifying potential talented consultant and FTE candidates.
2. Introducing ourselves and our brand to get them excited about what we’re doing and how their capabilities may be aligned with our opportunities.
3. Getting to know the people in their network who they hold in high regard. It’s the ‘ripple in the pond’ metaphor where that initial candidate is a stone that is rippling out to others on both the candidate and client sides.

What is the most important component of creating a successful recruitment process?

Structuring your work approach so that you can continue to maintain those relationships, even when you don’t have the right fit for a candidate right now, or this year, or even three years from now. We have multiple consultants with whom we’ve engaged three and four years after we’ve had an initial conversation with them. It’s about maintaining that credibility and enough of a relationship that the candidate knows who you are, and they want to engage with you when the right opportunity presents itself.

The RoundTable approach is different, and that approach informs our process and what we can control. When we’re meeting a candidate, it’s our goal to understand their full capabilities, their current accomplishments and how they’ve achieved them—but then to understand what is driving them to look for their next opportunity, contract or FTE. There are varied drivers at play – the opportunity to make an impact, for example, the type of leadership structure that’s embedded in a client, exposure to new technology, to new resources, and an innovative approach. So it’s our goal in the recruitment process to really understand those factors that are driving candidates. When we’re looking at facilitating placement or engagement, we’re making sure that the appropriate ‘intangibles’ are aligned.

How do you find consultants, and how do you know that they are the right fit for the job?

If we have a preexisting network, our immediate focus is on our contacts in that network, and consultants for whom they have respect and a similar skill set. For net-new recruitment, where we don’t have a pre-existing related network, our initial approach is reaching out using professional networking sites or groups, like LinkedIn or the American College of Healthcare Executives. We reach out to those people who are most likely to have the skill set and the capabilities for which we’re looking. We then do a deep comparison of capabilities with client goals to ensure alignment.

Are there any current trends that impact the recruitment process?

From an outreach perspective, recruiting has traditionally been a transactional experience. In a pre-digital world, specific recruiters had specific opportunities and you had to go through that recruiter to get them. Particularly within healthcare IT, there has been a transformation regarding the players that are ‘in the game’. With many other recruiters available, my team needs to differentiate RoundTable from the white noise so that we elicit interest and response. And social networking, being able to connect with someone on Facebook or LinkedIn, makes it much easier for consultants to interact with their network, share information, likes and dislikes, provide feedback about clients and consulting firms – good or bad. As a result of these trends, maintaining that deeper dialogue has absolutely been huge for us.

Additionally, the industry approach to customization and optimization has changed. Projects that exist now are much more strategic in nature. It’s understanding the tools, resources, functionality, and limitations thereof coupled with what we’re trying to accomplish operationally, and how we can make improvements in operations that can support automation through digital technology resources. You need to have the right mix of all those skills to really be effective with what we’re trying to accomplish.

How much of the recruitment job is seeking consultants versus the consultants seeking positions that you’re trying to fill?

Most of our job right now is about seeking consultants to fill particular roles. We have specific needs that our clients have shared with us, and we are either going out and establishing new relationships, or going to the network that we have built and reassessing capabilities and alignment. The consultants with whom we work, and with whom we most actively want to engage, are in a position of relative power. They’re having their door knocked upon on a daily basis, therefore, the onus is on our recruitment team to differentiate ourselves and to present our opportunities in a way that will truly speak to a consultant who may only return one email or one call out of 20 different outreaches received.

However, in building new and maintaining pre-existing relationships, we’re also gaining traction from people who are interested in what we’re doing. Often, candidates do not directly align with our immediate opportunities; however, that doesn’t mean that they’re not a great fit for our organization and for our core competencies.  We realize that it is critical to take the time to still have that thorough dialogue and fully understand where an opportunity may exist in the future, or where we can coordinate with the business development side of the house to identify an opportunity for that talented resource.

We need to ask ourselves, “Where can we synthesize an opportunity where we’re going to be able to highlight that candidate’s capabilities while serving a client’s needs?”

Are there parts of the recruiting process that you would like to improve or streamline?

On the project-based side, especially when recruiting for shorter-term engagements, it is challenging to align everything. Overall, we’re driving deeper conversation, but there are candidates who are used to that traditional transactional experience, and are hesitant to invest the extra time to build a deeper relationship. For those who are used to doing something a certain way, we have to really put ourselves out there to gain that additional level of trust.

I’d love to have the power to fix the ‘hurry up and wait’ scenarios, where we have the best candidate, and have a great potential placement but it is difficult to align calendars to schedule interviews, get tangible and timely feedback, or direction on next steps. It’s extremely difficult to maintain a balance of keeping that candidate excited while navigating delays and other red tape issues.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you see throughout the process?

In consulting, one challenge is that different clients have diverse tolerances for onsite versus remote presence; the logistics of travel definitely weigh on individuals differently. We have some consultants who have been out on the road for a long time and they become tired of the travel.

Another significant challenge we face is compensation. We’ve seen a shift in overall client tolerance for bill rates, which directly impacts what we can pay and still make it beneficial for all parties. Many times, our consultants want more than we can offer – it’s then critical to show the value in a particular project that’s not captured in an hourly rate. We would never want somebody to be below market value, but many times some degree of flexibility with rate is necessary to solidify a mutually beneficial scenario.

Many candidates are drawn in by the glamour of consulting, the higher dollars, and really cool, innovative work, but it’s not for everyone long term. We find ourselves at a crossroad, where there are some who have really broad consultative skill sets, but are ready for the stability of an FTE role. Another hurdle within that is overall appetite for relocation, or lack thereof – especially to rural areas that have limited access to resources and a lower cost of living.

What advice would you give to someone looking for a job in this market?

My biggest piece of advice would be to take advantage of any and all opportunities to diversify your skill set, no matter how niched you may be. Particularly in healthcare IT, things used to be relatively siloed. Things are so much more heavily integrated now. Having a global understanding of the way that different pieces of the puzzle fit together is absolutely critical. The people who are going to continue to do well and be engaged in these more strategic roles are going to have exposure to things that are ‘outside their wheelhouse.’ But it’s having that global picture and seeing different ways of doing things — being able to evaluate the impact of a particular approach or understanding limitations.

The post Learn From Our Leaders: Q&A With Lauren Rosenthal, Director of Recruitment and Delivery appeared first on RoundTable Strategic Solutions.

Well, it actually just fell into my lap. Before I got into healthcare, I was in banking and finance. I met a gentleman in 2007 who was seeking a regional Vice President of Sales – someone he could groom and mentor to help learn the business. I took the position with his healthcare IT company working with payers, and I just fell in love with the industry. It’s intricate; there’s a lot of moving parts and pieces; there’s the financial aspect; there’s the patient and consumer aspect; there’s the care coordination aspect; there’s the quality aspect. And from there it’s just continued to give me additional opportunities. I’ve met some great people along the way, as well as great mentors who continue to provide support, insight and act as a “Big Brother” while continuing to help me learn and grow.

How do you think IT leadership roles have changed over time within the healthcare industry?

Back in 2007, IT was primarily responsible for supporting the day to day applications that supported financial, clinical and other 3^rd party systems inside the health system or physician group.  Now, IT is being viewed through a different lens and is viewed as strategic partners and problem solvers to the counterparts on the operations, clinical financial and marketing sides of the business. Strategic IT roles continue to evolve, with the growing trend and organizational investment in chief medical informatics officers, chief nursing informatics officers, physician and nurse champions, and combining patient care with informatics. The importance of turning data into information requires tools and technology, which then requires these IT counterparts to be able to identify vendors in the market that can help solve the problems. Now, not only can we see individual benefits of the IT team, but also the strategic value that they bring to the entire organization.

How do common perceptions of healthcare differ from their reality?

As a patient, my perspective confirms what my day to day job is – that there’s inefficiencies within the healthcare delivery system with challenges sometimes including poor access to care, redundancy in tests, duplication in documentation, a lack of collaboration among care providers, lack of understanding patient statements and bills, and the concept that patients are transforming into consumers. Consumerism in healthcare is here to stay and patients have a choice. You can thank organizations like Amazon and Uber for helping transform the healthcare mindset.  However, I’m seeing that many of the leading organizations in healthcare have been tackling this hurdle. So, depending on my healthcare provider, my perception as a patient is somewhat accurate. I do think that high performing healthcare organizations are actually moving to improve upon all those areas.

The healthcare IT vendor landscape has many new players that are helping organizations solve some of the complexities and inefficiencies previously stated. The challenge for IT staff is to navigate the pros and cons and determine if their CORE EMR and Revenue Cycle systems vendor(s) have these tools in place and determine if they have been turned on and operational.

What is the importance of innovation within Healthcare IT and the need to continuous investment?

I think we have some really smart entrepreneurial talented IT professionals that have been able to create a niche for themselves inside of healthcare. When I go to HIMSS, both the state and national events, I typically gravitate towards the vendors that are doing some really cool things that relate to reporting and analytics, clinical quality outcomes, and even improving the financial performance of their customers. This includes both consulting firms and IT vendors.  There’s been this new blood of entrepreneurial thinking within healthcare IT, and the challenge is that some of the health systems will embrace this while others may not be ready for it.

Health systems speak of innovation but struggle to determine the best path forward in their on-going journey and evolution of how their current IT systems support a high-performing best in class healthcare delivery system. We have to think about how innovative the health system is in which we are working. Are they willing to make an investment in people, process, and technology in order to drive the operational efficiencies of the business? This must not be viewed as a cost, but as an investment in their whole infrastructure, system, and care delivery model. The maturity model of healthcare IT and innovation must align to the maturity model of the health system’s willingness to take on new ideas in order to solve problems that they’ve been struggling to solve for years. As we talk about the maturity model and some of our other tools and service lines, it’s important to note that some organizations we’re working with are way more advanced than others. In terms of innovation, these advancements involve operational redesign, technology, and the willingness to take on risk. What we must do is find a way to package all that together, so we create a good customer experience and an affordable healthcare system that drives outcome.

What IT trends have been most influential in the past? Which do you wish to learn more about in the future?

In the past recent years, this idea of immediate gratification and full customer convenience has really forced healthcare to look at consumerism a little bit more strategically. As we shift towards high deductible health plans and self-insurance, consumers take on more responsibility, and thus have a choice. It’s important for healthcare organizations to embrace that and prepare for the shift.

To help with this, we need to ask questions such as ‘Do these health systems have the technology to provide patients timely access to care? Do they provide alternative methods of care? Can I use my mobile or other technology to drive the patient experience and to drive results?’ So, I think that shift towards consumerism is huge and we’re going to have to continue to embrace it. People of all ages – Generation Y, Generation X, the baby boomers – have different paths in which they want to consume data and interact with providers. It’s our job to find a way to serve all these differing needs.

The other big trend that continues to drive is this business intelligence, reporting and analytics. In healthcare, we move towards an electronic medical record, the Epic’s, the Cerner’s of the world, to help have one patient record, one chart, which then improves revenue cycle performance and clinical documentation while also supporting quality outcomes, ACO’s, risked-based contracting – all that stuff. The issue is that we have all this data sitting inside our electronic medical record and we’re probably only using a fraction of it to inform operational strategies, revenue cycle strategies, patient access strategies, clinical strategies, growth and service line strategies, acquisition strategies of hospitals or physician groups, etc. I’ve been in this space for 10 years and that continues to be one of the top five issues for executives: consuming the data, interpreting it, and figuring out what the action plan is next. I believe that’s going to continue to be an issue as we encourage providers to document this information, so we can start to look at holistically, rather than piecemeal.

What are the biggest challenges in healthcare IT recruitment?

There’s two different angles to this.

The one angle is on the permanent side of our business. From a direct hire permanent placement perspective, healthcare organizations have to be a little bit more creative in hiring qualified, full-time resources. I say that because the pool is shrinking and the competition for these high-quality resources who have multiple certifications and a great deep technical skill set is growing, and many of them may not want to relocate to a certain city. The question here is ‘How do we provide them an opportunity to be a full-time employee virtually or a full-time employee where they have the ability to work remotely?’ because people aren’t willing to uproot their family but are interested in working for those organizations.

And so, that leads to the consulting side. There are a lot of very talented consultants who are burned out and ready to move into a full-time role that has job security and benefits. Travel and the constant need to find the next “gig” can get old. We are seeing CIOs start to think strategically about how they can create employment models that get highly skilled consultants off the road and into full-time roles. This approach does require organizational buy-in and close collaborating with your Human Resources team.

What advice would you give for someone pursuing a career in healthcare IT leadership?

Here are three simple steps you can follow to get your start in healthcare IT:

1. Be a sponge – observe, listen, and learn.
2. Get yourself a mentor (or two!) – someone who you can learn from, but also learn with.
3. Jump in and get engaged! – participate in projects, contribute to committees, narrate your part in national chapters – anything that continues to strengthen your knowledge and your network.

As you continue your career, don’t take anything for granted. I think that’s an important concept. It’s something I learned on the soccer field both as a collegiate athlete and coach.You have to work hard and be a team player, but at the same token, you have to have some level of autonomy and independence. I think you also have to be a problem solver. Your clients, especially in a consulting space, are looking for you to provide industry insight, subject matter expertise, and serve as a trusted advisor for some things that may not necessarily be revenue generating. You have to remember that it’s not always about the deal. It’s about the relationships; showing those relationships that you’re knowledgeable about the market and proving to those individuals that you have a broad knowledge of what’s going on in the healthcare landscape, from both the payer perspective and the provider/vendor perspective.

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