Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Kick-Starting Your ICD-10 Project: Who Actually Does the Work? – Part 3

This is part 3 of a 3 part blog series on Kick-Starting Your ICD-10 Project. In Part 1 & Part 2 I shared my ideas and tips on how to identify the business artifacts and technology assets in your business portfolio that may require remediation to accommodate ICD-10. In this last part I'll share more tips and ideas on how to assess the human capital assets involved with your ICD-10 project and business portfolio.

It’s all about the Stakeholders, Process Owners & Roles Doing the Work


To move forward with your ICD-10 project, or any project for that matter, you must identify the roles, process owner champions, subject matter experts and other stakeholders that make your business run. A comprehensive list of the key roles your business is dependent on – both internal and external – should be assembled. 

For each area, identify one or more individuals who can be held accountable to commitments:


Identify critical knowledge areas and the unique skills each of these areas require for their ongoing operation and support. One way to quickly identify critical knowledge is to ask your staff the following questions:

  • “If you had to leave suddenly and only had one day left to brief your replacement before October 1st, 2014, what would you put on your list of ICD-9 things to tell them?”

  • "What kinds of ICD-9 related knowledge or skills do you now have that this office will miss most when you leave?”

[BTW...Depending on the people involved and the answers given to the above questions, you may want to consider re-valuing their true value to your business and incent against any sudden departure!  :) ]

Where's the Risk?

Equally important is to identify areas where you’re lacking a qualified SME and/or process owner champion. Consider where gaps in business process and project-specific knowledge exist. A project-focused skills inventory can be leveraged to identify training opportunities and areas likely to require supplemental staffing at certain points of the project and/or during cutover when dual processing and the inevitable slowdown occurs. Don't sacrifice future opportunities and revenue by skimping on the compartively trivial education and training most high-performers relish.

Tying It All Together


Keep this in mind: a good asset inventory isn’t merely a laundry list of business processes, applications and systems that need to be reviewed and revised - but rather a tool to help you identify and prioritize your pathway to successful remediation of your business asset portfolio. All of your assets are directly or indirectly related to and supportive of each other. When an addition or change occurs to one asset, there’s almost always a direct or indirect addition or change to another asset.

The information assets needed to effect your business are not created and maintained on a stand-alone, sequential basis but rather iteratively - as the capture of one piece of information leads to the identification and capture of another.  The key is to set up a framework (i.e. portfolio) and capture needed information is a structured, iterative manner.

By identifying interrelations and dependencies between your assets in a structured and maintainable fashion as you progress, you’ll reveal not only active applications, but also those assets not being utilized to their full potential, or that are redundant to other applications, or that may no longer adequately be supporting your desired business outcomes.


Go Forth...and Come Back as Needed

By considering and acting on some of the information I’ve presented in this series of posts, you’ll have kickstarted the creation of a portfolio of valuable business collateral that'll help ensure the success of your immediate ICD-10 project while providing ongoing value to other projects and your day to day operations - long after your ICD-10 project is but a distant, fond memory!

I hope this information was useful.  For more ICD-10 information, be sure to Follow Me on Twitter

Thanks for reading!


 

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