NASHVILLE, TN – When it comes to mergers and acquisitions of healthcare IT technology, companies need to be transparent to preserve patient and physician relationships, according to healthcare technology integration expert Amelia Wright.
Wright warns executives not to jeopardize patient and physician relationships by disrupting their stable production environment for the sake of completing an integration.
[See also: PwC predicts top 10 issues in 'seminal year' for healthcare.]
Wright is president of Wright Consulting Inc., a Nashville-based information technology management firm specializing in healthcare services. She is scheduled to speak at an upcoming Investment and M&A Opportunities Healthcare conference to be held in Nashville on February 1 and 2, 2012.
"During the merger, it's extremely difficult for any organization to stay focused on the basics, but the last thing you need is disruption to normal business operations, incurring fallout from physicians and patients,” she said. “The momentum of the integration needs to continue, but not at the risk of a stable healthcare environment. You want the changes to be transparent to avoid compromising valuable relationships."
"The integration issues can be daunting for small and medium-sized companies upon the close of the transaction. Hopefully, the greatest risks have been correctly quantified through the due diligence effort," Wright said, who was honored as an elite member of the Top 100 Premier CIOs by Computerworld.
Wright listed the top information technology integration issues as:
- Infrastructure inadequacies -- skills, environment
- Mission critical business applications -- interfaces, migration
- Single points of failure identification -- technical, clinical, business
- Customer advocacy -- problem, change, project management
Solving the integration issues while simultaneously maintaining smooth daily operations is an extremely risky undertaking, she said. To vastly improve the odds for success, executives will choose to help their team by providing extremely well qualified consultants.
"Having an expert level external advocate who can provide solutions, resolve conflict, and diffuse tensions will help the team maintain the stamina and motivation required to effectively execute integration activities," said Wright.
"Opting for a generic consultant who has a narrow range of functional and project experience is not the answer, she added. "Finding the expert-level partner who has successfully performed healthcare integrations will reduce ramp-up time, insure strong project communications between business, technical and clinical areas and provide superior risk management skills."
[See also: Health IT M&A activity down in 2011, value up.]
"Executives who select their consultants wisely will benefit from going through the integration process – once. Rebuilding relationships, reworking projects is costly – choosing the right partner, the first time, will be money well spent," she said.
"The ideal consultant can help business and technology leaders accurately prioritize integration projects, deploy proper resources, and measure their progress. By correctly performing these tasks, the organization can maintain stable business operations and keep the integration transparent to their valued patients and physicians," said Wright.
