The Project Management Institute says that 50% of all projects fail. A successful digital transformation project that gives you the tools and stepping stones to get your care services up and running with digital care planning will not fail. So, what does a successful digital transformation project look like?
Getting Started
Deciding to make the switch to digital is a project that involves various stages. Where digital care planning sits in your digital strategy will be entirely dependent on how technological your care services are already. Some services may already be using an eMAR or an app for pain management while others are yet to install internet into their location.
Choosing a suitable digital care planning platform for your health and social care service in itself encompasses many areas. Is it suitable for your care type, is it flexible and adaptable to your needs, is it easy to use and visually appealing, does it have the highest security credentials? But what about the implementation itself? Does the digital care management platform supplier offer dedicated Project Managers to assist with your digital transformation journey? If you have over a certain number of services and beds, a project management team from the platform is essential in assisting you and ensuring a smooth roll out the platform to your services.
According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), 50% of all projects fail. A successful digital transformation project that gives you the tools and stepping stones to get your care services up and running with digital care planning will not fail. So, what does a successful digital transformation project look like? How can you make it a manageable task? What questions should you ask the project management team?
Milestones & Expectations
According to the PMI, 29% of projects fail due to poorly defined opportunities and risks and an inadequate vision or goal. A good digital transformation project will have clear expectations and set targets, goals, milestones and expectations as you implement your digital strategy into your care services. Ensuring you have a clear outline of all the steps you will be taking in the project will give oversight into what is going to happen and when as the project progresses.
To ensure that the project progresses at a rate that doesn’t become overwhelming, a successful project will be gated in the sense that you can only progress once certain milestones have been met. This will make the task more manageable.
“We were concerned about migrating to a new system because we didn’t know how our colleagues would cope with change. Nourish was excellent, they put a bespoke training package in place for us and took the time to walk us through each step of the journey from setup to implementation.” Golden Care
Build a Centre of Excellence
A successful digital transformation project will not just make rolling out the platform manageable but will build a centre of excellence within your care service. Providing you with the knowledge to become self-sufficient in the platform will give you the opportunity to become confident and comfortable in the platform and digital care planning as a whole. Such knowledge will also provide you and your team with the autonomy to help align the platform with your policies and procedures, so it suits the needs of the care services in your remit.
When starting your digital transformation project, it is vital to encourage involvement from your passionate and most tech savvy colleagues to help support the rollout. Encouraging change in practice and culture is not always smooth sailing so having members of the team champion this change will benefit the rollout in the long run. To ensure a successful transition over to digital it is essential to appoint champions who will be advocates for your chosen platform within your organisation.
While it is often assumed that there will be a hesitancy in the use of digital by some care staff who are less confident with technology, research shows that respondents shared consistent descriptions of a high level of acceptance. A study into Nourish and Care Worker Engagement by Graham Brittain MBA from Plymouth University, found the acceptance of the care planning technology was facilitated by both the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the system. Interviewees frequently cited ease of use in their responses and this was a common ‘particularly liked’ factor that emerged from the survey.
Choosing the order in which you roll out the platform to your services is crucial. It is important to think about leadership, staff engagement, current agency usage and enthusiasm when selecting your services for the first phase of rollouts. This is because they will lead by example for the services that follow. By rolling out the platform in this way, you are able to define what best practice means in your group and then spread that out across all your services.
A successful digital transformation project will have clear milestones and a platform provider team that supports you and your teams to become experts in the platform on the start of your journey to digital transformation.
