KEMH LLC Blog

Healthcare Scrum

2009-11-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

After witnessing several family members with chronic health care "mysteries" bounce from physician to specialist, it became apparent that if all the physicians and specialists had met briefly to discuss the case (a "scrum", if you will), the solution could have been identified within hours instead of within months.

One loved one with a chronic health "mystery" went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester where exactly this kind of care was administered and within 2 hours, 4 physicians and specialists had identified the root problem and the long-term solution. The loved one has not had a relapse of this condition since the Mayo Clinic "Scrum". The Mayo's physician teamwork correctly identified the issue in record time - reducing patient suffering as well as medical costs.

To support a new approach to healthcare, there will be the need for reform in how physicians and specialists interact, but also a new approach to managing the healthcare data. Tooling to support reform includes dashboarding, data integration, business intelligence/analytics, and updated health privacy policies. It's also my opinion that an overall case management methodology based on Scrum Agile would also improve patient care accuracy and improve solution delivery times.

A white paper written recently highlights the need for integration of health care across health silos and the increased collaboration of a team of physicians to create a holistic medical solution for each patient. Visit Healthcare Reform and Master Data Management at Perficient's published whitepaper website (whitepaper by Perficient's Lisa Morris and KEMH LLC's business partner, Linda Lyons, as contributor).

If the framework fits...

2009-11-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

To those in the know, there are general frameworks and concepts that hold true (with perhaps minor modification) regardless of the industry.

Enterprise Content Management and creating data portals/business intelligence reports are among the concepts that can be easily ported from one company to the next with minimal modifications based on industry. When trying to create flow of data through the enterprise to teams upstream and downstream, the need is the same though the content may be different.

Based off my consulting experiences in various industry, including manufacturing, marketing, health insurance, insurance, travel, financials, among others, the enterprise overview graphic I've created below depicts a standard flow of how I've seen data flowing across heterogeneous enterprises. This is how organizations can leverage the benefits of best practices in reusing tested frameworks across industries and companies, lowering risk and short- and long-term costs, while leveraging a wider pool of knowledge and lessons learned.

Why Risk the Requirements?

2009-11-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

Requirements Risk Management (RRM) is the best way the industry has to eliminate the 90% of product defects introduced in the Requirements phase.

Some methodology, such as Scrum Agile, are designed with RRM in mind. Early learning is key to getting it right before getting it wrong costs the organization budget, credibility, and morale.

Please click here to see the Requirement Risk Management presentation I prepared and delivered to a Project Management 101 group, with references to industry experts, in November 2007.

Cloud solution provides clear benefits

2009-07-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

After talking extensively with many solution vendors working on projects in states across the union, it is clear that the country is wasting an enormous amount of money tripping over the same integration APIs and system requirements for each implementation in all 50 states.

State governments are undergoing a system upgrade called the Unemployment Insurance Modernization, for which each state is spending between $25MM to $100MM+ to install one-off systems, sometimes leveraging maintained frameworks and source code. In the end, all the solutions are one-offs that will need to undergo individual and costly upgrades again at some point in the future.

Why not have one solution hosted on a cloud environment with 50 virtualized environments? You can have data centers distributed across the U.S. to provide redundancy in the event of disaster, etc.

This one solution could potential cost only $100MM to $200MM to set up once. Each new state setup with virtualized environment could probably be done at well under $100K, and would have configurable business rules to allow each state to implement custom functionality without modifying the source code. The solution would run the same maintained source code, which receives standard maintenance upgrades.

This type of solution with virtualized environments to allow individual "instances" is very doable. As a matter of fact using this separation of source code from business rules, I designed a system for 3M in 2003 that allowed all new product introductions globally to run through one framework and source code deployed to 47 divisions and 39 countries. Cloud computing adds an additional, high-speed improvement that can support vastly more transactions and users.

Cloud computing holds many promises and this kind of business case could save the U.S. in the ball park of $1 Billion.

Select-a-Box or Out-of-the-Box?

2009-07-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

When you answer “what you do”, people are waiting for you identify yourself in one identifiable category. What if you can select several diverse categories?

Technical Strategist
Program/Project Manager
Business Analyst
Journalist

System overload – crashing, crashing!

The world has become a place of specialists where it takes a generalizing specialist to pull together the the big picture, the multifaceted cross-industry picture.

This is what KEMH LLC can provide: diverse experts that can see “The Big Picture” and can help your organization think “out of the box” to meet its goals.

See the KEMH LLC Capabilities Deck to see how diverse skills can be brought together to leverage world-class solutions.

Wireless Wonderland

2009-07-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

So, the business case is that professionals on the road want to have access to present a PowerPoint presentation, but don't want to have to schlep a laptop to every remote location.

No problem! Since 2007, Impatica has provided the firmware and hardware connector that allows you to present a PowerPoint directly from your BlackBerry to the projector via Bluetooth, no laptop or back strain required.

But what else is coming? Based on buzz in the mobile and wireless community, check out the linked presentation below:

Click here to see a mobile roadmap of how presentations delivered from a BlackBerry mobile handset directly to a projector prompted the discussion of the end of the desktop PC.

When I'm out on the road pitching to organizations and need to project a PowerPoint, all I'll take with me these days is my BlackBerry Curve and my ShowMate.

Rules of the Road

2009-03-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

Recently, I developed the standards for cross-platform reporting. Mobile, kiosk, photo marketing, and other module data could uniformly flow in a standardized format to any authorized, subscribing analytics, CRM or other system. I called this documented integration, “the rules of the road”.

The standardized flow of data relied on all internal teams, external vendors and clients agreeing to abide by a set of standards, with the TCO exponentially lower than the custom reports that all parties were previously accustomed to.

Oftentimes, a microcosm can be construed to the macro level.

A week after I finalized the standard, President Obama addressed the nation with his “Rules of the Road” speech. Business and finance should create new standards for monetary transactions, he asserted. If all players agree to abide by documented rules, the benefits will be greater reportability (transparency) and a lower-risk financial environment.

“Rules of the Road” is just the strategy we need to create a standardized business environment with an auditable flow of funds through the market. With these documented “rules of the road”, a microcosm of the economy could be built out in software using standard “business rules” (perhaps using Oracle’s BEA suite). This software environment could simulate the economy with money, like data, flowing through the system from end-to-end. With automated “business rules”, lawmakers would actually be able to test the impact of policies on the flow of money through the economy before enacting policies into law. Eventually, each tagged unit of money could be tracked on its path through the economy – how is that for accountability!

The current state of “hit or miss” would be replaced by a new strategy, “test and know”.

Instant Mobilizer™ should be an Instant Success

2009-02-26T18:50:00.000-08:00

Just weeks ago, I discussed the idea of templating mobile web development, designing in the ability to dynamically generate mobile sites from Internet sites. It’s happened thanks to dotMobi with the introduction of its Instant Mobilizer™ product.

It always was just a matter of time before mobile became commoditized. Mobile, as other software plug-and-play modules, is following the path of:

1. New and expensive
2. Reusable and growingly affordable
3. Commoditized and inexpensive

Mobile is simply another module in the overall environment of integrated e-tools being used to power today’s organizations.

Long-term IT professionals should take heart when considering adding mobile to the IT portfolio, especially with this kind of accelerator tool. When learning mobile, think “dog years”. If you’ve been in IT for more than 10 years, you’ll find that 6 months in mobile feels like 3 ½ years in terms of how easily you acquire this new domain. Download an SDK from an aggregator (e.g., mBlox or another aggregator), learn the quirks of the mobile platform with mobiForge, learn about MMA compliance, and you’re positioned to utilize the mobile platform to your organization’s advantage.

You’ve been through the latest-and-greatest at least several times before…

Recession Proof Your Marketing and Communication Channel

2009-02-20T08:59:00.000-08:00

Can the average consumer afford your mobile marketing campaign?

During this downturn, I recently spoke to a T-Mobile representative who said many people are "optimizing" their mobile plans (i.e., cutting expenses) by reducing or eliminating SMS text message packages.

So what does that mean for your mobile campaigns? Think WAP, think mobile web browsing with an optional SMS plug-in and an optional email plug-in for optins. With mobile websites, include a plug-in so people can opt in via their web-based email accounts (viewable from the mobile phone) - you still get your consumer participation metrics, while the consumer gets to enjoy the brand without the SMS text message overhead cost. The consumer's level of investment requires only subscription to the data plan, as opposed to the data plan AND a SMS package or per SMS charge.

The mix and match marketing modules you use in this downturn will impact your clients' campaign success. Consider mixing a mobile component, which requires low- to medium-investment from the consumer, with a word-of-mouth component, which requires no investment from the consumer to participate.

Check out iLoop's blog at: http://iloopmobile.com/blog/ for more ideas on mobile web browsing. iLoop, incidentally, is the organization that powered the mobile component of President Obama's mobile campaign.

SMS Text Your Government with Validated Feedback – Great Idea IF…

2009-02-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

A U.S. Senator’s team was allegedly talking about the implications of setting up a mobile application to track citizens’ feedback on government issues. Just as Obama’s campaign has connected with citizens via easy-to-access SMS campaigns, this idea would make it easier for the average, busy American to give input on governmental policies and new ideas while on the go.

But the Legal group apparently began to ruminate. Uh-Oh! There goes the simple, user-friendly flow! After all, Legal regularly brings up important and sticky compliance questions, such as “how do we know the person is in possession of the handset”, etc., that sometimes derail good ideas.

Before nixing the idea of government feedback as undoable because of compliance issues, let’s talk about possible solutions. Perhaps we can take a use case from the credit card domain.

Ok, so with your credit card:

User sees an item and purchases it with a credit card.
How does the credit card company know a person is in possession of his/her own credit card? The user must enter an account PIN.
How can the user verify authorized transactions against the credit card? The user checks the monthly statement for details by date-time, merchant/purchase details, and dollar amount of transactions.
How can the user reverse unauthorized transactions against the credit card? The user begins a complaint process with the credit card company.

With the mobile phone, the flow could reuse this same pattern to allow citizens to give secure text input to their public officials. The flow would be altered slightly to ensure that a legislated API is adopted by all carriers for regulated SMS campaigns.

User sees a call-to-action to give governmental input and sends an SMS Message Originator (MO) with a keyword, a code, open text comments, etc. A carrier-provided API legislated to be standard across carriers logs all SMS Message Originators (MO) sent by the user’s mobile phone to the user’s billing details.
How does the regulated mobile application know a person is in possession of his/her own mobile phone? The user enters a carrier-generated PIN validated against a carrier-provided API legislated to be standard across carriers.

How can the user verify authorized transactions against the mobile phone number? The user checks the monthly mobile phone billing statement for details by Date, Organization, Time, Short Code, SMS text MO, Quantity of Text Messages Sent, and dollar amount of transactions, if applicable. For example, the user’s monthly mobile bill may look as follows:

Date	Organization	Time	Short Code	SMS (MO)	Qty Sent	$ Amt
1/09/09	Fedex	3:49 PM	433339	Tracking # 1234	1	0.20
1/09/09	Fedex	3:52 PM	433339	Where is my package?	1	0.20
1/09/09	Senator1	4:47 PM	777779	Feedback	1	0.00
1/09/09	Senator1	4:48 PM	777779	User Pin: 5555	1	0.00
1/09/09	Senator1	4:49 PM	777779	Category: Environmental Feedback	1	0.00
1/09/09	Senator1	5:00 PM	777779	All communities should be incented with federal funding to implement community gardens. This ensures if national transportation is disrupted for any reason, all communities still have access to food.	1	0.00

How can the user reverse unauthorized MO transactions sent under the mobile phone? The user begins a complaint process with the carrier, which for regulated mobile applications reverses both the charge on the statement and text transaction sent to the mobile application under that mobile phone.

Where there’s the will of the people, there’s a way…