Maximizing the Value of Your Consultant
6 Ways to Ensure You Get the Most Benefit from Your Resource
The reality of bringing in an external consultant means making a financial commitment to leverage the resource effectively while also being fiscally responsible. Frequently, clients see the consultant as a designated means to complete a particular project or objective. HSi sees it a little differently. Not only do we want to help our customers achieve their immediate goals, we want to ensure you leverage the vast expertise of our consultants to maximize the value we bring to each and every client we work with. Here are a few tips to ensure you are getting the maximum value:
- Know your consultant will follow your lead. Not wanting to appear as overly critical or inflexible, consultants may hesitate to share their thoughts and observations, especially outside the boundaries of their project. If you are willing to get their input, ask the consultant directly for their opinions and suggestions.
- Set up routine meetings with your consultant one-on-one to discuss not only the project, its objectives and progress, but to also provide time for open communication regarding other observations the consultant has made and about any issues they may uncover. This could include items directly related to the project for which they are dedicated, or it could be about adjacent processes and activities of which they may be part.
- Understand consultants with years of experience likely bring more global EHR knowledge to the table beyond the specific application for which they are being asked to support. By knowing the whole picture and how applications interact and interface with one another, the consultant has the ability to help with advanced troubleshooting and can quickly identify workflow versus technical issues. This is a huge benefit that can and should be leveraged by the organization for both time and cost savings.
- Look to your consultants to bring in best practices from other client sites. This should not only include a general understanding but also include potential tools and additional workflow options that may be utilized within your own organization without having to recreate the wheel.
- To ensure positive change adoption to the project(s) your consultant is assigned, leverage your consultant to educate your appropriate leadership. By letting the consultant work directly with leadership, the organization themselves become the champions of change to increase buy-in and appears to employees the consultant is not the one pushing change on them.
- Set expectations with your team and your consultant for the consultant to be working side-by-side with your other analysts and staff. Not only can the consultant provide knowledge transfer, but they can also be available to answer questions and help in raising the expertise of your own team members.
By utilizing these various tips, your organization has an opportunity to get dollar for dollar more out of your consultant engagement than what you might have on your own. Know that HSi is here to support you and your organization’s needs and are happy to ensure these types of practices are put into place in our engagements. Your organization’s success is our own and we want you to feel like you have gotten the maximum value and success out of your project.
