We’ve passed the halfway mark of the year, so my team has naturally begun to evaluate our progress for this year and to map our path through the fall and into 2020. In particular, we’ve been looking at our business goal to strengthen our core.
In our 2019 business plan, we defined that as improving our cost-effectiveness and efficiency while delivering a higher-quality experience so those of you who use Hixny can rely on our services.
To that end, this year we have:
- Made a number of significant investments internally, such as developing new tools that continuously monitor key processes to make sure that our systems are always available for patients and providers.
- Continually beaten up-time performance targets set by the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY), which determines our funding.
- Redesigned systems to support internal project planning, strategy and execution, which reflects the need for more robust processes around our common and increasing numbers of ongoing projects.
That last point is important. Each year, the SHIN-NY increases funding for interoperability and innovation projects. We’ve needed to improve our existing processes so that we can manage our growing operational tasks while taking on all the moving parts associated with those state-funded projects—four of which are under way now. In fact, we’ve cross-trained the majority of our technical staff in different development processes to stay in sync.
All of these efforts reflect a major shift in thinking about our goals. We used to be focused on getting providers connected and their data flowing. Now, the industry is maturing and moving away from a singular focus on reaching a critical mass of connections. Instead, providers and health information exchanges (HIEs) like Hixny are collaborating to make data meaningful, actionable and useful, so that it can be used more effectively.
For Hixny, that means understanding what’s happening with the providers in our community and echoing shifts internally. We’re evolving to meet and exceed customer expectations and improve satisfaction, whether by using technology to make it easier to track requests and connections, by making the path to a personal contact clearer or by increasing our proactive efforts to put information in customers’ hands—such as the training refreshers available on HixnyAcademy.org.
From small efforts to large ones, the needs of our customers are driving our work. That applies to quality and functionality, as well as service and support. And as we look ahead, we see plenty of opportunities to continue to build on the infrastructure we’ve been reworking this year.
