Northwell streamlines IT request tracking system with a solution already in house
Lake Success, NY — Health systems that want to keep staff updated with the latest technology often face a bottleneck: The series of approvals, legal reviews and compliance checks required for each purchase can create a bureaucratic nightmare even for the simplest of requests.
A typical purchasing system is built around emails that assign tracking numbers to every request. That provides a small amount of structure. In practice, however, email tracking is hardly better than using pen and paper. Requests move faster than printed forms but it doesn’t do anything to speed the process.
That was the case at Northwell Health. Until Northwell VP of IT Scott Silberlust knew something had to be done.
His IT shop of 30 full-time employees supports a 21-hospital system with 450 ambulatory and physician practices, and Northwell is growing rapidly.
“We would get hundreds and hundreds of requests to buy software,” Silberlust explained when Healthcare IT News visited Northwell’s campus here.
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Before joining Northwell, Silberlust managed IT at a financial institution using a system that was far more efficient. So he challenged his team to come up with a better option.
The first step was establishing a team of 12, comprising web services, legal review, finance, in addition to IT.
As that team began to scope out system requirements and set upon the process of finding a solution, it became clear that using an existing platform, Microsoft Sharepoint 2010, made more sense than buying a new one.
With some planning and application development, Northwell tuned SharePoint to support exactly what it needed.
The first version, dubbed eRequest, was ready in four months. It was deployed in January 2015 and the value was immediately clear. But the team knew it could be better and, in fact, delivered an upgrade in January 2016 that is now meeting more of their needs and supporting some 2,000 users.
In the old system, “people would just submit a contract by email and we didn’t even know it existed,” said Samantha Grenier, who manages Northwell’s IT contracts.
A dashboard in the Sharepoint system now enables Grenier to track the process of requests as they go through reviews by legal, finance and security. That significantly improves the approval process and helps her prioritize urgent requests.
The new request tracking tool has also helped train the staff on the need for specific pieces of information before new technology or renewal of an existing contract can be approved.
When a user begins a new request form, they need to provide answers. What are the budget codes? Does the purchase come out of capital or operating budgets? Who is the approver? If the requester doesn’t have the answers, they need to go back and find out. If there is a contract or service agreement, it can be attached to the ticket.
Before, gathering all of that information may have required multiple emails and phone calls.
A significant benefit of the system, Silberlust said is that helps ensure that “everything we are purchasing is compliant. It asks if there is anything related to PHI or credit card information.”
When there is a need for compliance review, the system will route the request to the person who needs to review it. Email alerts are kicked off to reviewers, letting them know there is a request to review, with a link back to the eRequest system
“The days of things getting lost are far and few,” Silberlust said.
Twitter: @GusVenditto
Email the writer: gus.venditto@himssmedia.com
