Newsham's Notes: The COACH CEO Blog
Simplify!!
Over Easter weekend I had the special opportunity to visit and meet with eHealth and telemedicine leaders from multiple African countries as I lead a workshop on standards. Part of the Joint Initiative Council leadership initiative for international standards collaboration among LMIC's (Low and Middle Income Countries) that I, along with Bron Kisler, Chair of JIC and Elizabeth Keller, Co-Chair of xSDO Coordination for the JIC are facilitating, this very short trip proved incredibly valuable in bringing home some truths for all of us.
As I shared information and knowledge on standards definitions, lifecycle, structures, work programs and various standards development organizations, the Chair of the Cameroon Telemedicine Association (cardiologist and chief of staff, also) said that what was really needed was a simplified lifecycle and a simplified approach to standards development, adoption and use. "Nice Mr Newsham, but not as usable as could be, simplify please". Wow, wake me up!
We are so used to our structures, processes, committees, meetings and all, that we accept our multi-part processes and take our complexity as absolute. We interpret our complex systems of health care (or eHealth or standards, or?) as requiring equally complex solutions. We need to use the fresh eyes of the un-initiated to consider an easier way.
Why couldn't we:
- Re-engineer standards processes to the very minimum necessary set of trusted, consensus based activities,
- Bridge the conceptually elegant _____ (pick your word here - standard, architecture, system development, deployment plan) to a simplified, scalable, action oriented, good-to-start implementation (which requires a strong understanding of business need),
- Improve our various processes (conference registration, patient lists, integrated care plans) to meet data needs quickly and simply, using technology that we all use day to day on our PDA's,
- Simplify the health care human-technology interface equal to that of the "i" entertainment world,
- Use the best of project management, that supports implementation and accountability, without being a complex paper burden,
- Target understanding the patient or provider experience at all times, going as far as we can in our eHealth solutions to improve that experience, directly and simply,
- Embrace the axiom - "less is more" (less steps, less extraneous data, less intrusion)
- Build safety directly and simply into every aspect of systems design, development, implementation and operation to protect against harm to any patient,
- Simply collaborate, cooperate and share,
- Tell the simple real stories of eHealth use, results and successes, from the patients and providers viewpoint,
- And...
I take these challenges to simplify to heart and they will be part of my thinking more than ever in the months ahead. What can you do to simplify your daily world, your project, your team initiative, your stakeholder engagement process, your (fill in blank) plan? What is the most important "thing" in our eHealth world to simplify - today, this year? A worthy challenge not just in Africa, but everywhere!
Share your thoughts and ideas with me at ceo@coachorg.com and continue the discussion on Facebook 
!
Missed some of my other blogs? Follow the links below to be taken to earlier Newsham's Notes blog posts!
