The Power of Data and Collaboration: Attainia’s Platform Delivers the Right Tools for Successful Change Management

Part two of a three part series on how equipment planners—backed by Attainia’s powerful medical equipment planning platform—can manage change to a positive clinical and financial outcome during healthcare construction and renovation projects.

• Read part one here
• Read part three here
• Download the complete guide, Embrace Change When Planning Medical Equipment, here

Attainia’s equipment planning platform, PLAN-IT, is the backbone that empowers planners to manage change—as well as equipment planning projects as a whole—accurately and efficiently. Featuring industry-leading tools including an integrated equipment catalog and virtual collaboration, PLAN-IT puts the power of real-time data at the planner’s fingertips— whenever, and wherever, they need it.

Equipment planners use the Attainia platform as the central repository for all project details. When an equipment change happens, that change is documented in Attainia for future reference—describing when and why the change occurred.

Attainia’s platform can integrate with many additional software systems— including change management tools, CMMS systems and more—but serves as the single source of truth for the medical equipment within a project. Hosting project data in a central repository where changes can be flagged helps significantly reduce errors that can be introduced when project details change—and need to be updated and communicated across the project.

Industry-Leading Medical Equipment Catalog

Attainia’s integrated catalog of more than 71,000 products puts accurate and up-to-date equipment details in the hands of the equipment planner to leverage anytime, anywhere. This includes product specification sheets, list price and organization pricing (if applicable), the ability to capture allowances, and more.

The catalog also allows equipment planners to “window shop” by researching different options for equipment within a category. A comparison matrix tool allows planners to quickly compare models, features and specifications of similar equipment. This tool can aid equipment planners in guiding clinical staff to make “right-sized” choices for equipment, as opposed to requesting the newest or highest level model if it is not necessarily needed—which can provide for significant cost savings in some scenarios.

The catalog presents significant time-saving opportunities for equipment planners—bypassing the need for an equipment planner to spend hours researching and tracking down product information. And, importantly, the catalog greatly reduces the chance of introducing errors to the project by referencing inaccurate or out-of- date product documents.

Room Templates

Customizable department and room templates available in PLAN-IT allow equipment planners to jump-start their planning with pre-built equipment lists—and avoid making mistakes like simply forgetting a piece of equipment, only to catch the oversight later in the project. These customizable templates can also be used to drive an organization’s standards, which helps ensure the correct equipment make or model is specified whenever applicable.

Virtual Collaboration

When a change is identified, Attainia’s planning platform empowers an equipment planner to share the message and change details quickly to all impacted teams and departments, both internal and external. All project stakeholders can log in and access real-time project details directly within the application for optimal project visibility. This reduces the chance that a team member is working off of an out-of-date spreadsheet or waiting for a change to be communicated via email.

Better Budgeting

Attainia’s planning platform houses historical project data—including an ability to track variances, like freight and shipping costs associated with equipment—to help equipment planners build better project budgets right out of the gate, and even allocate for inflation and contingency dollars.

Customizable Project Structure

Attainia’s PLAN-IT platform is customizable to fit the needs of each individual organization and project. Within the platform, equipment planners can identify and indicate existing equipment that is going to be reused. (Even when equipment isn’t going to hit a project’s budget, it still needs to be accounted for in the design.) Equipment planners can use PLAN-IT to build the structure and capture what is important, even if that changes from project to project within an organization.

Reporting

Attainia’s PLAN-IT platform enables planners to generate custom reports—including data sheet reports, budget reports and room-by-room reports— to give project team members real-time visibility into project planning and budgeting. These reports can be configured into different formats and outputs to highlight the appropriate information to each specific audience, and put the right data in the hands of the right stakeholders. This empowers the planner to manage and communicate the equipment list and budget—and efficiently manage quality control of the equipment list—throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Skilled Equipment Planners + Attainia’s Powerful Tools = Positive Change Outcomes

Successful change management in medical equipment planning requires knowledgeable and experienced planners who know how to leverage the right tools to quickly assess a change situation, and to manage it to the lowest possible impact to the project cost and schedule.

Here are some of the ways an equipment planner can leverage tools from Attainia’s medical equipment planning platform to affect change management and help drive success within the project.

Assessing the Full Scope of the Change Impact

As soon as a change is identified in a project, an experienced equipment planner quickly gets to work to start a change order impact assessment. This is true whether the change is a request (like a physician preference for a different equipment model) or a mandate (such as a new regulation that must be adhered to). Armed with the right tools, like Attainia’s PLAN-IT, an experienced planner can review project plans and equipment specifications to quickly assess the full scope of the change.

For instance, let’s say a program change requires medical equipment that has already been planned to change locations, from large Room A to a smaller Room B. A skilled equipment planner could quickly lay out Room B and—by accessing PLAN-IT’s integrated equipment catalog and all necessary product specification sheets—be able to quickly assess: Are all MEP requirements in place in the new room? Does any special venting need to be set up? Based on the equipment specifications, will the equipment still fit in Room B, or does a change need to be made? Skilled planners can often find significant cost and time savings in working ahead to identify and address any potential issues, rather than reacting while the change is in- flight—and while construction or equipment installation is taking place.

Communicating and Documenting Change

One of the most critical mistakes that can happen after a change is incurred is to leave out any part of the project team that needs to know about the change. Communication breakdown can have major ramifications later in the project. For example—early in the project, during the equipment validation stage, project stakeholders assess the cost of a physician’s preference for a different MRI machine, and approve the purchase. However, the change is not communicated to alert the construction team and architect to widen the doorway to fit the new machine into the room. Suddenly, the project is absorbing additional labor and materials charges.

A skilled equipment planner knows the importance of tracking changes in a way that is universally available to the project. Armed with PLAN-IT, which provides a real-time source of truth, equipment planners can flag changes and have accurate documentation of when the change was made, and why the change was incurred.

Visibility to change is important, too. PLAN-IT’s virtual, real-time collaboration platform allows project team members to view the project as a whole to understand why and when changes are introduced—and not simply address changes in a vacuum.

Advising Against Unnecessary Changes

There are circumstances when an equipment change is proposed within a project that would be expensive or risk project delays, without a strong return on investment. In these cases, an equipment planner can leverage data to help stakeholders understand the true cost of the change—and recommend against the change—while also identifying alternate, cost- effective options.

As an example, a physician attends a trade show, and learns about a new device that seems to provide higher quality outcomes. An equipment planner working in PLAN-IT could quickly access and compare product specification sheets via the integrated equipment catalog to assess: Does the new device require a different power source? Does the new device provide any enhancements or additional clinical care improvements? Is the effect on clinical care cost net-neutral? Posing these questions may help the project stakeholders decide against the change request, or provide insight into workable changes that would allow the change without major project time or budget impacts.

Identifying Change Opportunities that Can Save Money or Time

An equipment planner working in PLAN-IT has data at their fingertips to help identify opportunities for cost savings—including quick access to contracted and/or GPO pricing, and an organization’s medical equipment standards. Having visibility into those details from a single source can simplify the equipment planning process and ensure the equipment planner is taking advantage of any discounted pricing available, rather than having to review multiple documents to synthesize the information and create a project plan.

Ready to Learn More?

If you’re ready to hear how Attainia’s industry-leading tools can empower your teams through successful change, let’s talk.