Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Building an Inventory of Assets for Your ICD-10 Assessment and Other Projects

One of the first steps to take in your ICD-10 assessment project is to create a laundry list of the business-related assets that are potentially impacted by ICD-10 and gather some key attributes for each item on the list. Identifying these core assets and collecting their attributes is a critical foundational component for driving and sustaining the gap, impact and SWOT analyses required to kick start your ICD-10 project and improve the chances of a timely and successful outcome.
Additionally, with a little extra planning and by expending some additional effort as you progress through your ICD-10 project, you can collect some additional information to address not only your ICD-10 project but also other projects undertaken in the future.  The following is a list of information to consider when building an inventory of your business assets:
Note: Many of these attributes are typically collected for other purposes like configuration management and application portfolio management projects and may exist in some form to facilitate your initial efforts.
General Information – Regardless of Potential ICD-10 Impact
Attribute
Description
Sample Values
Major asset category

Business Process, Reporting, Software/System, Training
Business Domain
What is the business domain in which this artifact is used?
Actuarial, Claims, Configuration, Customer Service, Fraud & Abuse, Finance, Care Management, Pharmacy, EDI, Member/Provider Appeals, Contracts, Legal, Marketing, Medicare, Membership, OPL, Underwriting, Data mart, Other
Artifact Common Name
What is the most commonly used name for this asset?

Criticality
How critical is this artifact to the day to day operation of the business?
Minor, Medium, Great
Artifact Alias or AKA’s
What short names are used to refer to this asset? Are there any variances by end user?

Artifact Acronym(s)
What acronyms are used to refer to this asset?

Type of Component
What type of asset classification?
Datastore, Interface, COTS, Function, User interface, Report, Batch process, MS Office file, Export, Process, Subscription, Tool, Staff
Assessment Area
What is the primary assessment area?
Data Conversion, Interfaces, Letters & Collateral, New Hardware, COTS products, Data products, Vendor, Data Stores,
Artifact Owner
Who is the person most knowledgeable about the location and value of this specific asset?

Primary Business Contact
Who makes primary decisions regarding the asset?

Business SME
Who is the business process owner?

Technical SME
Who is the person with the most knowledge of the technical nature of this asset?

Complexity
What is a general level of complexity for this asset?
Simple, Low, Medium, High
Stability
How stable is this asset? How often does it require attention and support?
None, Low, Medium, High, Pain in the Ass

Source of Asset Information
Where was the information for this asset obtained?
Assessment Process, Business Unit, Data Models, Vendor Documentation, report inventory, Technical Documentation, User Guide,

ICD-10 Specific Attributes
Attribute
Description
Sample Values
ICD-10 Element Type
What type of diagnosis-related element is involved?
ICD-10 Diag, ICD-10 PCS, DRG, HCC, Case Rates, etc.
Component Impacted
What portion of the asset is impacted?
Documentation, User Interface, DB Schema, Interface, Logic, Data Mapping
Remediation Effort
What type of effort is involved?
Remediate, Migrate to Other, Unknown, Retire, No remediation required, Configuration, Test
Responsible for Remediation
Who owns responsibility for remediation?
Internal or External
Remediation Priority
What is the priority for remediating this asset?
Low, Medium, High, Urgent
Estimated Remediation Complexity
How complex is the remediation approach?
Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Extreme, Unknown
Remediation Owner
Who is responsible for remediating the asset?
IT, User/Dept, Vendor, Other, Unknown
Impact Level to Other Assets
What impact or dependency does this asset have on remediation of other assets?
None, Minor, Medium, High
Estimated Effort Size
What is the estimate size of the remediation effort?
Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge
Dual Use Required?
Does the remediation approach require ability to support dual usage?

Needed by Date
When is the asset required to be remediated?
During run-up to cut-over date, On Cut-over Date,

Technical Information – Regardless of Potential ICD-10 Impact
Attribute
Description
Sample Values
Platform
What type of hardware and operating system?
Mainframe, Unix, Windows, Hosted,
Language
What is the primary language used in this asset?
Java, COBOL, C/C++/C#,
File Type
What type of file system(s) does the asset utilize?
Database, flat file, MS Office, paper, etc.
Database Type
For assets using a database system, what database platform is used?
Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server, Access
Software Version
What is the most current version in use and what is the next logical version?


Vendor & Miscellaneous Information
Attribute
Description
Sample Values
Vendor Name
Name of the Vendor

Vendor Service Category
What type of “product” does the vendor provide?
Licensed COTS Software, Licensed Custom Software, Hosted Software, Trading Partner, Service
Vendor Contact
Primary Contact at Vendor

Licensing Information
What are key licensing terms?

Annual Maintenance Contract
Is the application covered under an annual maintenance contract?

Renewal Date
When is the license/maintenance contract up for renewal?

Is Source Code Available?
Can usable source code be obtained if necessary?

Is Technical Documentation Available?
Is current technical documentation available?

Is User Documentation Available?
Is current user documentation available?

Age of App
How long has this application been used?

End of Life Target Date
When might this particular application be retired?

Next Major Upgrade Date
What is the next major software version upgrade planned?

# of local users
Number of local users

# of WAN users
Number of users on WAN

Est # of Interfaces
Number of interfaces

Est # Lines of Code
Metric to estimate size of the software


3 comments:

  1. Healthcare is just like the US tax system - overly complicated and hard to make sense.
    -Jack @ Inventory system

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is really informative. Thanks for sharing this information.
    llc corporation

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice blog, thanks for sharing the information. I will come to look for update. Keep up the good work.

    asset health

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.