Before embarking on a digital transformation, El Camino Health’s IT director wanted assurance that the health system had the proper foundation to fully support new digital health solutions. The best way to make that determination, Bradley Miller decided, was to have an outside vendor conduct a HIMSS INFRAM assessment.

“When I took over this position about two years ago, there was no strategic plan in place for the IT department, so I looked to a framework like HIMSS INFRAM to give us a baseline,” explained Miller, who is the Director of Technical Services and Ambulatory Services at the nationally recognized, not-for-profit health system that operates two acute-care hospitals and various primary care and specialty clinics in California’s Silicon Valley.

HIMSS INFRAM (Infrastructure Adoption Model) helps healthcare organizations assess and benchmark their IT infrastructure capabilities and maturity. By identifying areas of strength and weakness, the framework offers health systems a roadmap to optimize their network to better support patient care and achieve their strategic goals. Regularly scheduled reassessments can then track progress over time.

Miller chose Cisco Systems to conduct the INFRAM assessment in part because El Camino Health has previously used Cisco solutions and he trusted that the vendor would maintain an agnostic perspective. Cisco has expertise across all of the domains covered by INFRAM. The assessment involves reviewing an organization's technology infrastructure to determine how advanced and well-integrated it is, then suggesting improvements if needed.

In El Camino’s case, the gap assessment led to a three-year network modernization plan to boost switching, routing and wireless capabilities. These upgrades were needed to handle anticipated heavier data traffic and workloads from next-generation solutions such as real-time tracking systems and wayfinding technology.

Miller declined to give specifics on El Camino’s INFRAM results, but did note that he was pleasantly surprised at the maturity of key areas across the infrastructure. This reinforced the return on some recent investments the organization has already made in these spaces, he added.

Ultimately, all infrastructure investments currently being made should result in a future frictionless digital experience for staff and patients. The INFRAM results helped Miller communicate his department’s funding needs in ways that leaders from other lines of business understood.

“I think it’s extremely important to have a strategic plan,” Miller said. “I chose to leverage the HIMSS INFRAM assessment to help me build that plan, and to give me reinforcement as I present it to leadership. I now have something that says what we need to do and provides the justification for why we need to do it.”

Miller advises other health systems struggling to prepare for digital transformation, or even to know where to begin, to use the information from an assessment to develop a strategic plan – then stick with that plan.

“If we were to lose focus on our strategy, we would get back to the old way of having a lot of tech debt and systems at the end of their life,” he said. “I don’t want to get back there again.”