Healthcare technology projects reportedly miss their mark up to 50 percent of the time and some require massive reworking after launch. Problems include things like unintended project delays, substantial cost overruns or not meeting intended goals. In some cases, projects are even completely stalled because of something that could have been discovered earlier in the project cycle. But, this doesn’t have to be the standard. Of all the variables that go into a well-orchestrated healthcare IT project, one of the most important steps is an early one: Project Discovery and Scoping. Check out our HealthData Talks: Archive & Discovery Scoping podcast where IT Solutions Engineer, Jake Carson, explains how the discovery and scoping process at Harmony Healthcare IT involves a deep dive to gather and organize all of the information needed to define and map out the project before it starts. Getting it right from the beginning starts with a thorough discovery and scoping effort. Discovery and scoping help avoid project pitfalls and mitigate risks. The team at Harmony Healthcare IT has developed a thorough Discovery and Scoping process that digs deep to help guide the pre-sale process to ensure all the information needed to inform the project plan is known, such as if the system has images, the size of the system, the types of records included, and so much more. It is important to get started on the correct path to realize the key goals such as being on budget, meeting the project timeline and delivering value to the organization. Discovery. This is a defined process that starts with a discovery document, which is a valuable list of questions and an inventory template to help chart the complete details of the systems on deck for data migration and/or archiving. However, it goes beyond just a document with a discovery call that includes involving the subject matter experts from the client’s organization who are using the system every day. Our team digs in and uses their experience and knowledge to ask questions like: What are the key data points you want to be able to hold on to and release in the long-term? For systems that are sourced by a vendor, it is important to understand the exact deliverables from the vendor. Our team seeks to understand the export deliverables since exports sometimes could come back incomplete. For these reasons, investigating beforehand is better. Scope. This, in a nutshell, is the overall extent of what needs to be migrated or archived. With most archives including custom built options, it is important to walk through the options and determine the scope of the archive needed for the specific system. Is it PAMI or assessment forms that need to be built? What product features are needed, etc.? Having an accurate discovery process informs the scope and pricing in an efficient manner. The benefits of a solid discovery and scoping process means getting it right up front. Unfortunately, there are some organizations that have endured other archive experiences that did not have a complete upfront experience and ended up with a stalled project (or many change orders)—so they turned to us. One example is at AltaMed, a community health network in Southern California. Complex dental records halted an archiving project with another vendor that didn’t have a solid understanding of scope. Harmony Healthcare IT dug into handling the odontogram records that stumped the original archiving vendor. As a result, Harmony Healthcare IT delivered a customized legacy data management solution with a seamless integration between the archived records and the go-forward production system, Epic. Read the story in Healthcare IT News. We identify the potential gotchas before they happen. Ready to learn more? Let’s talk.