Saving Lives By Being Wireless
April 18, 2008
As a technology specialist, everyday I see the power that technology can have in helping a business grow and helping people become much more productive—both of which potentially lead to a financial impact.
I was talking with one of our most recent health care clients last week and I posed the more serious question,
“Can proper use of technology help save lives in a hospital?”
He’s a rather profound thinker so it made perfect sense to him to explore the topic. As a note, we recently installed a wireless communication system at his site. The list below came as a result of a total diagnostic that his site went through prior to the selection of a wireless solution. Obviously, every facility is different and recommendations vary on a case by case basis.
Yes, because of faster reaction times and increased staff availability.
In diagnosing his situation (pre-sale), we found that his staff didn’t feel mobile. They felt tied to their unit. Consequently, they believed quality of care suffered because of that. With a wireless system, their mobility increased—they could perform their jobs from anywhere in the hospital. A nurse there told us a story about a common situation that used to take 3-5 hours to resolve. And that with the new communication system, she coordinated the exact same result in less than 30 minutes. Over the course of 400 nurses and 2300 patients, that two hours turns into tens of thousands of hours of productivity advancement.
Yes, because of paging delay elimination between doctors, nurses and staff.
Under the old system, nurses spent less time taking care of patients directly and personally, and more time with admin details. They all felt like patient care was a casualty. With their new system, doctors have all critical information and direct access to nurses and staff. Doctors also spend much less time on hold which allows them to do what they do best—administer care.
Yes, because more and more people are involved in patient care, which can create errors in the handoffs.
The information flow is greatly increased. (More here on patient info flow. Think about a story like I have in the prior paragraphs.) For example, it used to be when someone wanted……this happened. And it caused….
Conclusion
The basis for this argument is that hours spent with the patient instead of running people and information down—or waiting for information-will lead to better patient care and thus better referrals to the hospital. Has it saved a life yet? Well, not that we know of. But the time will come when an hour saved will be the difference between life and death.
The Seven Business Issues That Fund Technology Investment
April 10, 2008
In this episode, Ray Hoffman, G3’s VP of Operations, discusses the business value of a technology investment.
There are seven major areas that technology will impact. Some of these areas might not be what comes to mind, traditionally, when you think of business problems solved by technology solutions.
Discovering Opportunities to Drive Competitive Edge
April 2, 2008
We caught up with Lisa Hill last week. Lisa is our VP Sales and is quite involved in helping clients identify the major issues they’re trying to solve with technology solutions.
Lisa and her team have a unique way of handling customer meetings and the sales process itself. We thought you’d like to hear it in her words. This may help you know what to expect when you ask G3 in to discuss your goals and issues.
The G3 Value Commitment
March 27, 2008
I was on a sales call the other day and the customer asked me a poignant question: “What makes you different from all of the other tech vendors that call on me.”
I’m not sure I answered it to his satisfaction, but I came back to the office and jotted down what my belief is about the value we bring customers.
I like to divide our value into three areas: Productivity, Cost Reduction, and Market Advantage.
Now, these three things can take on many looks but I don’t think selling technology should be about the technology. It should be about WHAT THE TECHNOLOGY CAN DO for your business.
That’s it.
Anyone who calls on you — and all they can talk about is the coolness of the latest technology is doing you no service at all.
That said, we’ve learned a lot in 37 years in business serving over 2500 customers–and here are some of our beliefs:
- We believe —that every technology solution MUST address core business issues. In fact, we won’t even make a recommendation unless it improves your business—financially or otherwise. (These improvement might come through things like better customer retention, better customer satisfaction, better customer service, or increasing revenue/decreasing costs.)
- Our second belief is that … success is about process. We have built a Proven Process that helps you and us determine exactly what those core business issues are—and whether there are technology solutions for those issues. We find that over 80% of the solutions we implement come from problems the client didn’t know they had—or didn’t know there were solutions for. I will share more about that process in later posts.
- Thirdly, the partner you choose must be have a WORLD VIEW that has at it’s core —helping you solve problems. We find most companies have as their CORE INTENT to sell products and platforms. And while that’s OK, it doesn’t always speak to your business issues—and G3 takes a very different view—-our intent is to solve problems given your business landscape— and given our knowledge of the solutions. An often overlooked portion of this is implementation, programming and support. Things WILL change in the future — you want to make sure you have a support system that can change with you.
I hope this helps you understand the commitment and belief we have in this world of technology. We take our process seriously–mainly because we want you to be amazed at the power technology has in helping you grow your business.
In a related post, Darren Marie does a brief audio interview about how to get ready for technology.
Unified Communications: What Efficiencies Can It Bring to My Organization?
March 26, 2008
As telephony moves into the internet (IP) space, it causes a shift in how and when we communicate. With this change, many people cannot distinguish between IP Telephony and Unified Communications. Consequently, we find that many organizations are looking at the world through antiquated glasses.
As a technology specialist, I felt it necessary to define Unified Communications to take the mystery out of it:
Unified Communications is bringing together all forms of communication: e-mail, instant messaging, voice mails, video etc., to any user - regardless of what they are using to obtain the communication (personal computers, wireless phones, PDA’s, Thin Client’s etc.)
How and Where We Work Is Changing
Brick and mortar traditional offices still exist, but are changing quickly, often becoming smaller. In addition, conference rooms, warehouses, airports, and campuses have all become areas of conducting business.
Add to that the influx of mobile and dispersed workers that also need to be connected and you have an issue: “How do we solve the complex problem of keeping communication streamlined amongst the whole organization?”
Two Questions
Look at your organization and ask yourself, are our internal users able to stay connected no matter where they go? If not, how much productivity is lost which can be tied to revenue generation that we are missing out on by operating this way?
Perhaps a Solution Is At Hand
The answer may be here. If you’re interested in increasing productivity, enhancing collaboration, creating flexibility and increasing the ease of communication across all areas–whether you’re sitting at a desk or consistently on the road, then the answer is Unified Communications.With Unified Communications you can collaborate in real-time with applications and features that once stood alone, while ensuring a secure connection and facilitating communication anytime and anywhere.Think of all the ways your communication must be integrated now:
- Video conferencing,
- Database access queries
- Customer information,
- Voicemail
- Fax
- E-mails
- Web conferencing
- Mobile IP softphones
These are all separate functions now. But are examples of applications that comprise a Unified Communications system. Implementing Unified Communications keeps you ahead of the curve and able to meet the needs of your external and internal customers in a more responsive manner. Due to that, business does not have to wait, it can be conducted right there and then with much more efficiency. What are the costs to your organization of waiting to answer an e-mail or having a fax misplaced or thrown away when it is in a public place, let alone what security measures are you taking to protect that information being sent and received via fax, phone, or e-mail?
User Choice - By integrating all of these applications, a workspace can now be created where users can choose the method of how they are connected and when they choose to be available. Therefore, allowing business to be conducted at times and in places it never has before, allowing for more revenue generating activities to take place when they arise, rather than having to wait for regular business hours.
What’s Driving This Effort? - Increased productivity, efficiency, and mobility enhancing capabilities are the driving forces of this new technology. Every company wants a competitive market edge—and to do that they must be quicker to market and more responsive to customer demands. Unified communications helps businesses, small and large alike, to streamline information delivery and ensure ease of use. This also allows for minimized or eliminated human delays, resulting in better, faster interaction and service-delivery for the customer, and cost savings for the business.
More Revenue! - We recently worked with a law firm of about 35 employees and 10 of them being attorneys. They were using an old legacy phone system and physical fax machines. When the attorneys were out of the office, to check their voice mails, they had to call into the system, and if someone at the office needed to reach them, the only way was to make a physical phone call, as e-mails could not be checked until they got back into the office. Many times the attorneys were in court so they could not answer and it got to be a game of telephone tag to conduct business, and this was only voice mail. What about e-mails and faxes? This firm implemented Unified Communications into their new phone system, and now the attorneys could be reached at any time, in multiple fashions, and the inside staff now had a more efficient way of conducting business.
Now every employee’s e-mail inbox became the unified location to receive e-mails, voice mails, and faxes. No more faxes were thrown away from the fax machine. The attorneys were set up the same way, but they also used their PDA’s as a means to access their e-mail, and like the inside staff their voicemails, e-mails, and faxes resided there as well. So, now while they had down time between court cases or were waiting for meetings to start, they could still work and in the world of law firms, the more billable time the better. This not only increased their productivity and their billable time, but created a much easier flow of communications, and created less frustration between them, their clients and internal staff.
Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, has stated that, “The largest single value of Unified Communications is its ability to reduce “human redundancy” in business processes.” Take a look at your organization. Most of your workers are knowledge workers, meaning: a member of an organization who uses their knowledge to become more productive and to help the organization become more productive (Webster). In that definition, virtually all jobs are knowledge jobs. And these are the very people who will see a huge benefit from unified communications. This workforce can always stay connected no matter where they choose to conduct business.
What About You? - If you have a sense that you can use Unified Communications, it is important that your vendor a) has a good knowledge of VoIP and the problems it solves and b) has a diagnostic that will help you understand your business problems and how unified communications can solve them. Understanding your pains, goals and strategies on how to achieve your goals are all integral pieces of information that lead to the right solution. A lot of money can be wasted by not having a clear understanding of the business processed prior to implementation. The vendor must be able to assemble a coherent, executable Unified Communications Strategy so that it will create the efficiencies and productivity which result in appropriate return on investment. The future of communications is here. Isn’t it time to learn what this technology can do for you?
Marissa Jacquay is a technology specialist with G3 Technology Partners and works with businesses to analyze and assess how technology can solve business problems. She can be reached at 317.876.6535 or by email at marissa.jacquay@g3tp.com.
Sources:
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications, 2007
Gary Audin, “Confused About Unified Communications?”
David Haskin, “The Brave but Speculative New World of Unified Communications.”