Eight Questions to Ask Before Partnering With a Healthcare IT Consulting Firm

Healthcare IT consulting firms help hospitals, clinics, ambulatory centers, pharmaceutical companies, senior facilities, and more to implement, manage, update, and otherwise oversee their technology in more effective and cost-efficient ways. Experts within the consulting firm’s network can fill in staffing gaps, whether for short or long-term roles, and bring a wide range of specialized knowledge to each position.

Leveraging consultant expertise allows healthcare organizations to increase productivity, cut costs, obtain analytical insights, stay in compliance, and so forth while providing better quality patient care. To benefit in these ways and more, it’s important to choose the right consulting company with the niche healthcare IT consulting services that you need for your organization’s success.

To support with your decision-making process, we’ve compiled eight questions to ask the consulting firms you’re considering.

Section 1: Understanding Their Experience and Expertise

Question 1: What is your experience in the healthcare IT industry?

At a base level, you’ll want to know how many years each of the healthcare IT consulting firms have been in business as well as the types of services they are providing and how long they’ve been providing those services.

Does the consulting company specialize in healthcare IT or is this an area where they will provide services in addition to other industries? Healthcare IT has become increasingly more complex and niche over the years, so it’s crucial to select a firm with deep expertise in the unique facets of this specialty that knows how to smoothly navigate the regulations with which healthcare organizations must comply.

Question 2: Can you provide case studies or references from similar projects?

For healthcare IT consulting firms that pass the baseline—meaning, a satisfactory answer to question number one—ask them for references, testimonials, and case studies. You’ll want to see proof of their success.

You may want to contact references early in the evaluation process, or you may want to wait and just contact ones for the firms that you’re most interested in at the end of your evaluation. With testimonials, pay attention to the specifics. What has impressed these clients? Are those elements of value to you? What technical skills are praised? What about soft skills like dependability, collaborative abilities, and excellent communication skills?

Although not every case study will focus upon your precise priorities, the problem laid out at the beginning should resonate with you as someone in the healthcare industry. Is the solution described in detail and is it logical? How did the solution positively impact the healthcare organization?

Section 2: Assessing Their Service Offerings and Approach

Question 3: What specific services do you offer in healthcare IT consulting?

Get a clear understanding of the scope of the services offered by healthcare IT consulting firms of interest and how they dovetail with your needs. For example, our healthcare IT staff augmentation services covers these types of roles among others:

• Training: After gaining information about training needs and workflows in your facilities, these professionals will design unique, engaging, and interactive training programs to prepare your end users to use new technology confidently.
• Process documentation: Technical writers can expertly capture user-friendly documentation for training sessions and/or as reference materials after the application goes live.
• Implementation: This can start with helping to set goals, tasks, timelines, and deadlines that dovetail within your budget and project scope. Then, experts in our network can work alongside you to allot resources strategically; clean, manage, and migrate data; deal with workflow challenges; and so forth to optimally implement the chosen technology.
• Configuration and Optimization: Our consultants can identify and create workarounds for possible pitfalls for the workflows being configured in the application. They will manage the process at the appropriate pace.
• Go-Live Cutover: Professionals provided through our healthcare IT staff augmentation services will test the setup, check off punch list items, and review the status with people in a variety of roles in your facilities. Before going live, they will verify the completion—of training, application configurations, and support systems.
• Data Cleaning and Migration: Consultants can assess the current system and ensure quality data migration in the most efficient and practical ways.

Question 4: How do you tailor your services to meet the unique needs of healthcare organizations?

No two healthcare organizations are the same—in their size, geographical locations, scope of services, and much more. So, each healthcare organization requires unique solutions for their technology needs. As you talk to healthcare IT consulting firms, consider your distinctive needs, and ask the consulting firms how they provide customized solutions to fulfill special requirements. Ask to see case studies (or analyze the ones provided) to gauge a consulting firm’s adaptability and flexibility and discuss how this can serve your healthcare organization well.

Section 3: Evaluating Their Candidate Pool and Matching Process

Question 5: How do you source and vet your healthcare IT candidates?

When hiring an employee, your healthcare organization goes through a vetting process that likely includes a thorough background check, reference check, and so forth. It’s crucial that your healthcare IT team—which has access to private data and is charged with ensuring cybersecurity, staying in compliance, and so forth—is composed of trustworthy individuals with integrity.

When you use a healthcare IT consulting service, you will be relying upon the consulting firm to do the sourcing and vetting of the members of their professional networks. So, talk to the companies about their screening processes and ensure that they’re rigorous enough to meet your high standards. Also, ask about how the healthcare IT consulting firms ensure that the professionals in their network meet professional requirements and have appropriate certifications.

Question 6: What is your process for matching candidates with healthcare facilities?

How do each of the firms offering healthcare IT consulting services gain a clear understanding of your specific needs? Without that understanding, of course, it’s unlikely that you’ll receive the best consultants to fill in your staffing gaps. How, specifically, do they match candidates with healthcare organizations? How do they make sure that the skills of the consultant dovetails with the project requirements?

Section 4: Assessing Support and Follow-Up

Question 7: What support do you provide during the hiring process?

This is connected to question number six and focuses on the amount and type of support that the healthcare IT consulting firms provide as your healthcare organization chooses the optimal candidates for current needs. In what ways and at what points will the consulting firm be directly involved? What parts are handed over to your healthcare organization to handle on your own?

At HealthTECH Resources, it’s our belief that healthcare IT staff augmentation firms should continue to offer strong support throughout the candidate selection process—and so that’s exactly what we provide. The outstanding, experienced leadership at HealthTECH Resources is here for you from start to finish, never leaving you to have to deal with candidate selection challenges on your own.

Selected consultants are then onboarded with care and familiarized with your environment and objectives to ensure a smooth transition to your IT team and their projects.

Question 8: Do you offer any post-placement support or follow-up?

Once the candidates are placed, inquire about what type of support is provided by the healthcare IT consulting firms. At HealthTECH Resources, we have a longstanding track record of client satisfaction that establishes us as a reliable and experienced partner. We’re convinced that part of this is because of the ongoing support that we provide healthcare organizations along with our systems, optimizations, and performance monitoring. We’re focused on your healthcare organization’s long-term success—not simply providing consultants and then moving on to our next client.

In short, ongoing communication and support, post-placement, is vital for the success of the collaboration. So, ask the firms you’re considering for your healthcare IT staff augmentation services about their philosophy—and then ask them to back up that approach with real-world examples of how that works when you choose them.

Importance of Due Diligence

Many times, when healthcare organizations require IT staff augmentation services, it’s often driven by critical deadlines of an EHR implementation or upgrade. In today’s rapidly changing tech environment, having the right team in place is crucial to meeting these deadlines without compromising quality. This checklist is designed to streamline the due diligence process to ensure that you choose the right healthcare IT consulting firm for your unique needs.

Contact HealthTECH Resources

HealthTECH Resources will listen to your challenges, requirements, and goals, happily answering all of these questions along with any others that you may have in your search for the optimal consultants for your IT projects. Our boutique-style firm has more than twenty-five years of experience in healthcare IT—and this is our only specialty, allowing us to remain at the cutting-edge of the industry and healthcare organizations’ tech needs, compliance requirements, cybersecurity needs, and more.

So, let’s talk! Besides thoroughly answering all of your questions, we’ll gladly provide relevant references, testimonials, and case studies to back up what we say with real-world evidence. Or, if you’d rather contact us by phone, please call (602) 903-7961.