Better Together

Situation/Problem: The St Andrew’s Hospice had grown and developed a large range of services to support their patients. The growth of the organisation had created some operational challenges in terms of management information and coordination of services. A mostly paper-based system was proving inadequate for the needs of the organisation. In addition, it lacked useful features present in a software solution and with the NHS moving to centrally maintain patient records, there was an opportunity to share data.

What Was Done:   Jason Reed was engaged by the St Andrew’s Hospice board of directors to facilitate a system selection process, present recommendations for a board decision and create a project plan. The project was to design a consultancy engagement that ensured that management and staff representatives were actively involved and supported any recommendations. In addition, the board teamed Jason up with the IT Manager to develop internal project capabilities. Jason performed process analysis, analysed requirements, and facilitated workshops to engage stakeholders. He facilitated the team to perform a comparative analysis of potential solutions and developed change management skills to create an approach that supported the process changes going forward. The options and recommendations were presented to the board and they made an informed decision that was well supported by their staff team.

Outcome/Benefit: Executive leadership of St Andrew’s Hospice were able to make an informed decision about the purchase of a clinical management system, with management support and understanding of the change. This led to better staff engagement and a successful transition from the initial clinical management approach to the new system.

Jason’s Reflection and Learning: On a personal level it was humbling to be working with people who are so compassionate and dedicated to serving others at a difficult time in life.

What was great about the engagement was the board’s commitment to ensuring that their staff were engaged in decision making and supportive of any change. Some of the operational team were initially suspicious that the board had already made their decision! In reality, the board were willing to take time to move forward as a whole organisation, realising it would be a more successful change by keeping everyone engaged, together throughout the journey.

The engagement with the operational team started with one-on-one interviews to map the organisational processes. We also took time to collect feedback on the challenges that the staff team faced and communicated it back to the board. Next came a series of learning workshops where the operational team were enabled to understand the consultancy process and validated the initial process analysis. After confirming requirements, the comparative analysis clarified the relative value of the options and recommended a way forward.

It was interesting in this selection process that there was one clear solution at the end of the process, as the core requirement was connection to the NHS data, which only one system provided. The decision was made with clarity of understanding by the staff team and the board and they were able to move forward, with commitment, together.