The HDI Healthcare Providers Forum and the HDI ITIL Implementation Forum groups met last week, February 9-12, 2009, in Scottsdale, AZ. During these meetings, we had action packed agendas that can be downloaded below, but the hottest topic of the week was "how to thrive in a tough economy".
HDI Healthcare Providers Forum Agenda: Download Agenda_HPF_Feb 2009_vFINAL
HDI ITIL Implementation Forum Agenda: Download Agenda ITIL_Feb 2009_vFINAL
As you all know, we are all faced with budget cuts and a downturn in business during today's economy. I wish I could snap my fingers and make it better for everyone, but in the real world this just can't happen. During the Forum meetings in Scottsdale last week, I watched the HDI Forum Members turn to each other...I watched them emotionally support each other and I watched them physically support each other...they spent countless hours during the meeting discussing tips for surviving and thriving during a tough economy. They even made lists of creative ways to cut costs during these tough times. I am very happy to share these creative cost saving measures with you today. I hope there are ideas listed below that you have not thought of within your organization and you are able to benefit from this list.
Creative Cost Saving Measures:
- Reduce (remove) personal printers. Saves on toner and repair costs.
- Stop replacing printers if they brake…fix them. Remove underutilized printers and put them where they are needed instead of buying new ones.
- Expand e-fax. Reduce the number of fax machines in the agency. Expected result is efficiency and repair cost reduction
- Reduce power consumption on PCs
- Voluntary pager exchange (get rid of pagers)
- Extend “end-of-life” for PCs (Defrag more often)
- Put non-critical projects on hold
- Don’t fill open positions
- Let contractors go instead of full time employees (FTEs) or convert contractors to FTEs to save money
- Voluntary hour reduction
- Salary/Raise Freeze
- Reduce maintenance contracts
- Cancel all planned Capital Expenditures for the rest of the year. No department is exempt from this. You can plead your case by submitting a business case for reconsideration.
- All departments to volunteered up front to reduce operating budgets by 10%.
- All vacancies have to be approved before they are refilled. A business case has to be built to be considered.
- Institute a 4 day work week for areas in IT that could work around it.
- Carpooling is encouraged and put a centralized plan in place to match up carpoolers.
- Reduce the type of supplies being ordered. (Keep to what is really needed to run the business.)
- Reduction in OT, consulting and promotions.
- Make efforts to reallocate items from one area of the business to another. e.g., Someone needs a bookcase and another area moved and no longer needs their old one.
- Contract networked printer repair to an outside contractor. They also supply all new printers when requested...essentially just pay for toner/paper.
- Lease program: Pay certain $ per fee for desktops, laptops, servers, and they are (normally) refreshed every 3 years.
- No refreshments for meetings
- All significant purchases (hardware/software) are being reviewed by Executive Committee (includes CIO) and scrutinized carefully
I wish everyone had a Forum group to turn to during times of need....and of course, during the good times...which will soon come...hang in there!
Don't miss the next HDI ITIL Implementation Forum meeting and HDI Healthcare Providers Forum meeting. Both meetings will take place June 15-18, 2009 in San Diego, CA. Both of these HDI Forum groups have already started brainstorming topic ideas for their June 2009 meetings. Please find the topic ideas listed below. If you have interest in joining us for one of these meetings, please contact Leslie Cook, Forums Program Manager, at 719-268-0338 or at lcook@thinkhdi.com.
Topic Ideas for next HDI ITIL Implementation Forum on June 15-18, 2009 in San Diego:
- Why would I move to ITIL® V3?
- Overview of V3 emphasizing differences between V2 and V3
- Discussion of reasons an organization might decide to make the transition
- Determine if it makes sense for your organization to transition to V3
- If so, develop a transition plan for your organization
- Members of the group to present their roadmap for their ITIL initiative to the group
- Forum members will discuss and critique your plan and give constructive feedback to improve your plan and improve your likelihood for success
- Share your experience with for fellow forum members as you critique their roadmaps and help them their plan
- Are you stuck? Has your organization lost its momentum? Not sure how to move your ITIL initiative forward?
- Come share your experience in the safe, supportive environment of the forum
- Get valuable advice from other members who may have been their themselves
- Learn how to break the log jam and move your organization forward
- We’ll pick one core set of ITIL processes and do a deep dive to understand the topic in-depth
- Possible topics include
- Change, Release, and Configuration Management
- Service Desk, Incident Management, and Problem Management
- Service Level Management and Financial Management for IT Services
- How to conduct a Change Advisory Board Meeting
- Have you ever wanted to see how an organization that had its ITIL act together would actually operate?
- Come be a part of our ITIL simulation where we’ll operate a company using ITIL best practices
- Forum members will participate in hands-on simulated operations as we respond to Incidents at the Service Desk, perform Problem Management to discover the root cause of our most critical Incidents, perform a Major Incident review, Create Requests for Change and then manage them through the Change Management process. We’ll conduct a CAB meeting, assessing RFCs for risk and impact to our organization, and approving those that make sense for our business.
- Gives members a chance to see what “done” looks like
- Not a sales pitch
- Let forum members see what an integrated toolset looks like
- 4 vendors show their wares then have a panel discussion afterwards for Q&A?
Topic Ideas for next HDI Healthcare Providers Forum on June 15-18, 2009 in San Diego:
- Knowledge Management and Decision Trees – Quick and Dirty Cheap
- Tour at Sharp Healthcare and IS Team/Applications Team Panel (IS applications/IS Infrastructure Support Models…value add, lessons learned)
- Show and Tell from Each Member: 7 minute walk-through of your Incident Management Process/Call Work Flow (scripted format: break fix/Provisioning/Portal in a portal support (physician portal)
- Member Facilitated Discussions (these are not a case studies. the member facilitator is facilitating, because they have experience within their own organization with the topic):
- The trials of training staff (ongoing, not just new) – i.e. improve the on-boarding/training process, how to absorb so much info in a short time
- Best practices around supporting remote workers (both IT and non IT) & Managing Remote Employees
- Supporting Patient Portal
I hope to see you at an HDI Forum meeting in the future. Please find a list of all Forum meetings that will take place during June and July below:
- Executive Forum: June 3-5, 2009 in Chicago, IL
- Healthcare Providers Forum: June 15-18, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- Government Forum: June 15-18, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- ITIL Implementation Forum: June 15-18, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- Law Forum: June 22-25, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- Retail Forum: June 22-25, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- Support Center Leadership Forum: June 22-25, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- Insurance Forum: June 22-25, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- Financial Services Forum: June 22-25, 2009 in San Diego, CA
- Higher Education Forum: July 6-9, 2009 in Boise, ID at Boise State University
If you have interest in joining one of these HDI Forum meetings, please contact Leslie Cook, Forums Program Manager, at 719-268-0338 or lcook@thinkhdi.com. You can learn more about the HDI Forums online at http://www.thinkhdi.com/hdi.aspx?c=44 or submit a request for more information.
Nice blogging with you,
Leslie Cook, HDI
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