If we have learned anything from the healthcare.gov debacle, it’s that managers need to choose their IT advisors wisely.
A recent Washington Post report suggests that CGI Federal, the IT contractor involved in setting up the website, probably should have been better vetted. The newspaper reported that CGI’s “performance on Ontario, Canada’s health-care medical registry for diabetes sufferers was so poor that officials ditched the $46.2 million contract after three years of missed deadlines.”
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While healthcare.gov’s problems can’t be blamed on any one player, it certainly raises critical questions for providers thinking about hiring a third party IT firm, questions like: What are the pros and cons of hiring an outsider? What hiring criteria should we use?
Whether the IT advisory firm you bring in works to your advantage or disadvantage depends in part on how good your vetting process is. That process requires running through a list of relevant questions – some obvious, some not so obvious.
Among the many issues to ask about:
- Are your engineers and consultants certified in the specialties needed? Among the credentials to look for are MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate), PMP (Project Management Professional), VCP (VMware Certified Professional), as well as certification on Cisco networks, and storage networking, said David Boone, CEO at IT outsourcing services company Paranet Solutions in Dallas.
- Does the firm have a proven track record in healthcare?
- Will it offer guaranteed response times?
- Does your team have experience writing policy and procedure manuals? (All the IT systems are useless if staffers don’t have an easy-to-understand set of instructions on how to use them.)
There are advantages to hiring an IT firm that offers the right answers to these and related questions. One of them is better compliance. An IT firm that knows the complex regulations outlined in the HITECH and HIPAA laws will help you meet those regs, reducing the risk of costly penalties for data breaches, for example. If the consultants have experience implementing SaaS and other cloud systems, that may also lower operational costs, said Boone.
If the advisory firm is up-to-date on new developments that your internal team has yet to catch up on, that’s one more advantage of bringing an outside IT firm on board.
“The No. 1 reason for any organization … to reach out to an IT advisory firm is for knowledge transfer,” said Nancy Landman, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s CIO for International and Commercial Services. “As organizations continue to innovate through technology, many new skill sets must be developed internally. IT advisory firms are a great way to acquire immediate experience in a new area while training internal resources on the new technology or solution.”
One of the disadvantages of using an outside firm, however, is the that outsiders don’t understand your culture or have as deep an understanding of your IT infrastructure as do your own managers.
The other potential disadvantage – especially if your vetting process is too hasty – is you may end up with simplistic solutions to complex problems, said Jim Adams, executive director of research and insights at the Advisory Board.
“If the consultant comes in with cookie cutter solutions, as opposed to tailoring the solution to your organization, you may not be getting what you need,” he said.
When Adams worked as a CIO, he saw consultants that would use the same blanket form to create an IT strategic plan for every organization. All they had to do was type in the new client’s name. “I’ve even had clients show me their strategic plan that had another company’s name in it. … Consultants are really good at gathering lots of information and then giving you the same answer they give everyone else.”