Healthcare Information Technology Research & Analysis : Coplan & Company : IT Procurement Management, Project Management, System Acquisition

A client of mine once called HIT procurement "a hideous business." She was talking about the abysmal and often unsuccessful process of planning through implementation for a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) procurement. I agree with her assessment. It has always been awful, but it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, if we concentrate on doing it well, we can increase HIT success.

I did my first HIT acquisition about 25 years ago. I used a word processor and paper and pencil. It was hideous. I've lost count of the number of my procurements since then, but I decided to make my life easier by starting my own IT acquisition project management company over 15 years ago.

I thought the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) would offer some insight. I was mistaken. In fact, this is probably one of the weakest Knowledge Areas defined in PMBOK (a topic for another blog post). Suffice it to say, I decided to create a web-based software toolkit to support a better IT acquisition approach.

When I got into it, I realized it really was two different approaches.

The first is conventional, like this:

This approach focuses on specifying and acquiring an HIT solution. You prepare line items to describe all user, technical, administrative, contract and any other requirements. You then organize these line items in a database of categories and subcategories and present them for vendor response, subsequent evaluation and selection. Using this database makes the acquisition process easier. It eliminates such problems as reconciling RFP documents, paging through hard copy responses to conduct vendor evaluations, documenting your solution selection, etc. This significantly helps with acquisition. It does little to directly increase HIT implementation success.

The second approach is scripted, like this:

This approach uses scripts to describe your user requirements and line items for all other requirements. You provide these requirements for vendor response, then supplement automated vendor scores with scripted demonstrations for solution selection. This involves users in demonstrations that help them see the best solution in context. This approach directly improves HIT implementation by: Defining measurable objectives, outcomes and risks Preparing user requirements directly tied to project objectives Assigning responsibility for objectives Verifying vendor delivered solutions against contract specifications Identifying and comparing current and future states Improving system adoption by identifying the impact of workflow changes on individuals

Get more information on how this electronic RFP can work for you.