FIT FOR PURPOSE
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN TERMS OF NEW TECHNOLOGY SELECTION?
The definition of “fit for purpose” is that of “well equipped or well suited for its designed role or purpose”. Purpose is defined by the Britannica Dictionary as the reason why something is done or used : the aim or intention of something.
In order to ensure that what is required for a purpose, one needs to ensure that the end purpose for the desired piece of technology is very clearly defined. Within Medical Imaging this purpose can have various key elements like Clinical Outcomes, Staff Usability, Features and benefits, Serviceability, IT landscape integration (RIS/PACS), Staff preference or bias and not least the Total Cost of Ownership and how these costs will be recouped. With these factors taken into account and the way that technology is evolving, one needs to be sure one is on top of what it is that will drive the final decision and how this will support and justify the purpose for which the investment has been made.
THE FACTORS
With so many factors to take into consideration, it is important to ensure that one focusses on the key imperatives that will add the most overall value, be that Clinical, Operational or Financial. Let’s delve a bit deeper into some of these factors:
Clinical Outcomes: what clinical imperatives are the daily bread and butter for this technology. Are the outcomes required delivered in a way that best supports decision making and thus ensures better patient outcomes? What are the nice to haves and can we afford them or is the question can we afford not to have them?
Staff Usability: How easy will it be to ensure that one of your most important resources is fully capable of getting the best out of the new technology? Change management and continued education are key factors in any buying decision.
Features and benefits: Do the new features translate into clinical and operational benefits or do they just sound good or look good? The practical implementation needs to be clearly communicated and then transferable into real & tangible department benefits. Be careful of the glossy brochures and sleek presentations…always ensure that the features are real and applicable.
Serviceability: This is a very key factor when trying to make sure the TCO stacks up over the usable life of the system. Key here is understanding the potential downtime and make sure strategies are in place to ensure that this is kept at a reasonable and manageable minimum. How good are the Engineers and the Applications Specialists, what is the stock holding like of Service parts, are there Consumables required and what is covered under your Warranty and Service Contract?
IT Landscape: Is your current IT infrastructure going to handle the new system or will there be compromises or work arounds required? What are the knock-on impacts of this on the clinical workflow? What is the dependency of the Software component on new hardware upgrades in the future? What is the impact of AI on the useability of the system or on the outcomes from the system? These are only but a few of the questions around IT.
Staff preference: We sometimes stick with what we know only because it makes our lives easier, however the decision around procuring a new piece of technology should be all about the clinical benefits of the outputs of the new technology. Inherent bias needs to be mitigated with the overarching focus on ensure a leap is taken to improve care outcomes.
Total Cost of Ownership: Have we fully allowed for all the costs relating to this new purchase and have we made sure that all the benefits provide us with tangible benefits that have the end result of providing better care outcomes? Sometimes it is quite hard to provide a tangible benefit of a new feature, but I believe it is imperative to ensure that this is done in order to fully understand how we can balance the upfront cost with Revenue or Operational benefits in the future. Only by investing the time and challenging the Vendors and your own processes can we really ensure we are doing a comprehensive TCO and making the right decision of the right reasons.
All of these factors together must lead to developing an Output specification that ensures all Vendors involved justify the features and benefits they are offering but also ensures that comparisons can be made. The end result is to find the best fit for purpose technology that ensures that the balance between Clinical, Operational and financial outcomes is achieved…all with improved patient outcomes as a key result.
KEY FINDINGS
KEY FINDING #1 Do the Homework to ensure the output specification covers the purpose that needs to be fulfilled.
KEY FINDING #2 Understand the vendor jargon and marketing to ensure the outcomes are comparable and clinically/operationally useful.
KEY FINDING #3 Understand the TCO and make sure all aspects relating to the benefits and/or compromises are suitably calculatable and comparable.
THE CARE MODEL
The CARE model seeks to provide a structured approach to determine the need at hand and ensure that due process is followed to get to the right technology for the right purpose.
Conceive: Here the idea is to create a forum for ideas and thoughts to be aired in order to provide perspectives to the clinical problem or opportunity that needs to be solved.
Assemble: to fully understand what we are dealing with we need to make sure we have all the baseline facts at our disposal to ensure that the outcome we are deciding upon meets the clinical, operational and financial criteria we are working with.
Reflect: with this we are bringing the perspectives of our internal & external stakeholders into play to ensure that we have covered all the necessary bases.
Engage: With all the previous steps covered it is now time to ensure that communication and buy-in is optimally achieved to ensure that the solution we have agreed upon remains embedded into the fabric of the organization and delivers upon expectations while adapting to the future needs.
The work involved in defining the purpose and then taking into account the various elements required are numerous. A lot of the time all the information is not available and when available is hard to consolidate to provide one sync picture. The devil is in the detail and in the understanding of the workflow that the required technology will be required to operate in. At the end of the day the overarching idea should be to ensure we change for the better and adopt a piece of technology because it will ensure that better patient outcomes are achieved but also deliver upon improved clinical, operational and financial imperatives.
DISCLAIMER:
The thoughts and opinions provided in this whitepaper have been gathered over many years and numerous interactions across various levels of healthcare delivery. The thoughts are here to provide points for discussion and to challenge status quo and thus assist in ensuring better outcomes.
