Choosing Your Champion
By: Nicole Desjarlais-Paulick, Director, Client Services
Congratulations on embarking on your MEDITECH Expanse journey! Your organization is about to make an important decision, one that will help show executive engagement in your project, and one that will tell the whole organization how important this initiative is. You’re about to choose your MEDITECH Expanse implementation project Champion.
It’s easy to default to designating your Chief Information Officer or IT Director to serve as Champion. They know technology and have likely been creating the organization’s IT strategic plan for years, as well as adding input to the organization’s enterprise strategic plan. But if the CIO or IT Director serves as your Champion, this may seem to the broader organization that the Expanse implementation is an IT project. It is not an IT project; it is an organizational transformation initiative that will impact all staff in the organization. When an initiative is this large and far-ranging, it may be beneficial to consider someone from the clinical or operational executive teams to serve as the Champion. This does not sideline the CIO or IT Director; on the contrary, they would serve as the IT partner to the Champion, working alongside them through the change management process, helping them communicate the technological and operational changes to the broader organization. They would be an executive pairing working in lockstep, but from the perspective of the broader organization, this would not be seen as an IT project.
Clinical Leadership
Having someone from the clinical leadership team act as Champion for your MEDITECH project can be an asset, especially in smaller organizations where clinicians drive the majority of policy and procedure decision-making. A Chief Nursing Officer, for example, can generally make decisions and speak confidently on behalf of many of the organization’s clinicians. Nursing tends to take an even more significant and prominent role in smaller organizations, so there is a good likelihood that the CNO is a trusted figure in the organization, and one who could work successfully with the CIO/IT Director and the implementation team. For larger organizations, a Chief Medical Officer may be a good Champion; they can engage the medical staff and ensure that the providers are participating and sharing feedback on workflows, and that they are utilizing the customization options available. The CMO can advocate for providers in the decision-making process and can also provide clinical oversight and direction to ensure that organization-specific policies and procedures are properly built out in the MEDITECH system.
Operational Leadership
For organizations where clinical leadership is often called upon to assist in a more hands-on capacity, it may not be possible to involve a member of the clinical team in a Champion role. Your organization may want to consider having an operational leader act as Champion; this is a person who is known to the staff around the organization and who has enough knowledge of the day-to-day challenges to advocate for the organization during the project. You may consider having the Chief Operations Officer serve in the Champion role; they are closely tied to your organization’s strategic plan and understand how the MEDITECH initiative fits into that plan, and they are known and recognized around your organization as a key leader. Many of the service lines may report to them, which gives them a wide breadth of knowledge that would be valuable throughout the initiative. A COO would also know who is empowered to make decisions for different areas of the organization, which will help smooth the decision-making process. If your COO does not have the bandwidth or desire to serve as champion, consider someone from the financial side. Chief Financial Officers often make excellent Champions, and they understand the financial impact of the Expanse implementation better than most other leadership roles. CFOs are often empowered with decision-making for the entire organization, and they are used to engaging clinical leadership in effective ways when their input is needed.
Account for Your Whole Organization
When choosing your champion for your Expanse implementation, make sure to choose someone who represents your entire organization. If you have a busy Oncology clinic, make sure they understand the importance of that unit to your organization. If your ambulatory clinics are large and generate a lot of revenue, make sure your champion understands the importance of a successful go Live at the clinics and not just at the hospital. Your champion needs to be the advocate for all areas of your organization, amplifying their voices, needs, and goals for the Expanse implementation and leading the whole organization to a successful implementation.