Introducing RL to Your Organization's Users: Takeaways from going live - Do's and Don'ts
Written by the team at Azura Vascular Care
Implementing and rolling out a new system in your organization is always exciting but can present its challenges when it comes to incorporating new technology and involving different teams. We had a “perfect storm” of events occur within our organization, but with the help of the RLDatix support team, we successfully implemented and have been using the RL Suite by RLDatix for over two years.
Working through and overcoming the challenges we faced allowed us to improve as RLDatix software users and build confidence in our skillset. Hindsight is 20/20, as the saying goes! Looking back, each step of the process presented learning opportunities we hope fellow users will find helpful and applicable during their own roll out and implementation of the RLDatix software.
How We Chose RLDatix
Once we finally had the product in hand it was time to get to work! Having selected the Risk, Peer Review and Root Cause modules our focus was primarily on Risk at first—as Peer Review and Root cause both stemmed from there. During this stage we received paper forms of all the templates from RLDatix and collaborated as a team of four – one of whom was a part of our internal IT team. Our team would meet regularly with the RLDatix team via conference calls to discuss these templates and make modifications needed to fit our organization’s needs. It is important to make these adjustments before implementation begins so that you’re not going back after production is underway. Due to unexpected internal changes shortly into this phase, the team went from four members to mainly two. 1 internal IT employee for as-needed technical support and 1 who became the sole operator in managing RLDatix. Flash forward to a time right before “go-live”, our sole-operator left the organization and IT support was reassigned.
Losing the primary system operator inevitably presented its challenges but also highlighted the ways we could have acted differently from the start—especially during this phase. We could have improved the rollout process and minimized the setback that turnover presented and its effect on the impending “go-live.” It would have been more practical to identify permanent key players—including internal IT-- who would remain active throughout the process. These players would collaborate and share responsibilities from the very beginning so that in the event of turnover, the knowledge and expertise exist with more than one user.
Testing - Identify Your “Power Users”
We hosted out a trial period of RLDatix software with three facilities before the full rollout to over 50 facilities (and growing!) over three regions nationwide. After we were through testing the program it would have been beneficial to spend more time educating and establishing regional resources for our future clinical users to refer to during the roll out and go live. For organizations with a similar landscape, we would recommend calling in regional representatives and leaders to introduce the program, orient and share training prior to roll out. The more support and expertise the better!
Go Live - Collaborate and Communicate
Our go live experience was mayhem! Losing our main administrator, our internal IT support tole, introducing new system users and going live with the software all happened during the same week. To make matters worse, it was at that time when we discovered additional errors in forms and misconfigured user settings. It was most unfortunate that these were all avoidable problems had we implemented the phases leading up to go live. While we recognize the “perfect storm” we faced is unlikely to occur for most, we would encourage future users to learn from our missteps!
We would advise against designating sole responsibility of implementing RL software to one person. In the event of unexpected administrator turnover, adjust your roll out and go live schedules accordingly, everyone should be fully acclimated on the go-live date.
Even in the best of circumstances, complications happen. The most useful takeaway through our experience was learning how valuable RLDatix' support team is! Once we identified what we needed to get our go-live back on track, it was RLDatix to the rescue. We were able to coordinate additional training with their experts, so our new administrators could be brought up to speed and recuperate the process.
Our advice is once your organization commits to RLDatix, plan for success! Collaborate, strategize and communicate with your team from the beginning and through each phase of implementation. Be proactive when problems arise and call on your RLDatix resources for extra support. Discovering problems along the way presents opportunities to connect with the RLDatix network you started building at Palooza. Take advantage of the HUB to converse and engage with your fellow RL software users. Should you find your implementation to be error-ridden, you can rest assured knowing there are ways to rally back—we are living proof!
