An HTM Guide for Upgrading to a Modern CMMS and Facilities Solution

“We not only were looking for a modern-day CMMS that could meet the needs of our Clinical Engineering department today and into the future, but also a CMMS company that would be a strategic partner. That is why we chose Nuvolo.”

 

– Dan Ritter, Director of Clinical Engineering & Capital Sourcing at SCL Health

If your hospital system is adding thousands of medical devices, merging with other hospitals, or building new facilities, you should upgrade your CMMS to Nuvolo.

Our CMMS was built in collaboration with veteran healthcare technology management (HTM) specialists and specifically designed to support HTM teams. We continually improve our platform with help from our colleagues at the hospital systems we partner with.

This blog walks you through why healthcare systems select Nuvolo. It outlines a typical implementation process and the exceptional results you can expect.

Why Upgrade to Nuvolo?

Here are some of the top reasons HTM teams choose us:

1. HTM, facilities, and medical device security teams all use the same platform, which can then expand to other hospital support teams like IT, real estate, maintenance, supply chain, pharmacy, clinical care, and more.
2. Nuvolo offers a cyber security solution that leverages national vulnerability databases to identify at-risk medical devices. It interfaces with all the major IoT security and medical device monitoring applications to further protect those devices.
3. The connected analytics in Nuvolo provide better business decisions. Hospital support staff share the same platform, and when all teams can update work order and asset information in the same database, you get powerful business intelligence.

Our mission is to help deliver better patient care by consistently improving our platform to ensure all hospital facilities and medical devices are safe, compliant, and operational.

Additionally, Connected Workplace for Healthcare provides:

• Enterprise asset management of medical devices
• An intuitive self-service portal
• Enhanced medical device security mitigation and management
• Automated workflow management
• A modern and easy-to-use mobile application
• Reliable data for regulatory compliance reporting

The Implementation–How We Get It Right

Assembling Your Team

We recommend assembling a team of anywhere from 5 – 25 people depending on your hospital’s size and the scope of the implementation.

Having unit and section heads, operations staff, and leadership involved is essential. And make sure your technicians are part of the process; they know what works and what doesn’t. Consider inviting colleagues from your supply chain, human resources, and location services departments. Invite anyone that could benefit from the new system.

If you’re worried about managing a process with too many people, don’t. We use the Agile implementation methodology and rely on smaller sprint sessions for product implementations.

An Overview of the Sprint Process and Implementation Guidelines

Our implementations are broken down into sprint sessions for each solution or core functionality. For instance, if you’re starting with implementing our Maintenance and Space solutions, you could have separate sprint sessions for Assets, Work Orders, Contracts, Mobile App, Floor Plans, etc.

If you have a team of five people, maybe everyone is part of each session. If you have a team of 25, you can divide people by their expertise and assign them to the appropriate sprint.

Sprints are broken down into a pre-determined time frame (typically four weeks). Weeks 1 – 3 are used to gather business requirements for the function or solution.

Requirements are built around real work scenarios and step-by-step discussions of what the function does and solves.

Nuvolo implementation experts provide best practice guidelines through every step. Our implementation team guides you through the design of your workflows.

Here are some excellent implementation guideline suggestions from our clients:

• Use workflows and business rules whenever possible; the Nuvolo team can help you automate a lot of work.
• Configurations, such as adding a business rule, need to be carefully considered. For those, you can rely on the guidance from the Nuvolo team to understand the dependencies and scope.
• Understand configuration vs. customization. Configuration, such as renaming a field, is not customization; you don’t need to be concerned about making those changes. However, the more customizations you make, the more unique your instance will be, making support and upgrades more complicated.

In week four, Nuvolo provides a demo of the sprint requirements. You begin testing the system to ensure they are correct and work as expected. This is very time consuming, so be prepared.

When a problem is found or the requirement needs to be refined, Nuvolo re-develops the demo, the system is retested, and the process repeats until you’re satisfied.

We understand the importance of implementing a platform that works with your current workflows and processes, and getting it right is our top priority.

The Results

Here are some measurable results our customers shared with us:

• The team gets real-time insights, certifies equipment performance data, and can pinpoint maintenance issues faster and more efficiently.
• Nuvolo supports Joint Commission and DNV compliance audits, specifically around attestation. Before Nuvolo, the attestation process was managed on spreadsheets. Now, by using OT Security, it’s fully automated.
• The Nuvolo solution allows HTM managers to track the planned maintenance history for each high-risk and non-high-risk device, yielding reports that not only assure compliance but enable smart decision-making that reduces risk.
• When a new piece of equipment is received, inventoried, and deployed by the service engineering team, its planned maintenance work orders are automatically generated.
• Everyone that touches a piece of test equipment from the moment it’s deployed to the day it’s decommissioned is recorded in Nuvolo, which acts as the single, authoritative system of record.
• The estimated average audit time decreased from about a week to a day since deploying Nuvolo.
• We defend expenses and change in staff better, gain a higher efficiency level, and pull down reports in seconds.

Learn more about our Connected Workplace for Healthcare solution, and contact us for a demo.