Revolutionizing Patient Care: How Transforming Patient Care: Command & Control Centres as a Catalyst for a Healthcare Revolution - introducing a found

The future of healthcare is patient-centred, with a blend of cutting-edge research and the compassionate art of practicing medicine. Advanced Command and Control Centres (CCC) act as a hub for this seamless evolution. They enable healthcare practitioners to focus on patients rather than paperwork by digitising and optimising, even eliminate, procedures, and much more. In this second installment, we look at the first steps towards successful CCC implementation from the standpoint of hospital board members and senior management. To recap, our first installment provided a broad brush introduction to the subject of CCCs (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/revolutionizing-patient-care-how-command-control-centres-panesar)?

Hospitals frequently consider spending up to hundreds of millions of dollars on software that only pays off when properly integrated and installed. The difficulties of obtaining and integrating advanced technology is understandable, especially for smaller, specialised hospitals with limited funds and digital capability. Yet the size of the hospital should not limit the ability to deploy a CCC; remember to get from A to B, a car is not the only modality - walking, biking, train, plane and sailing are all possibilities - what matters most is to make patient and staff needs the absolute driver of technology choices.?

It should be noted that the implementation of a CCC is not just another IT project. It is a transformational development that has a significant impact on work processes, organisational culture, and patient care delivery.

The first iteration of our basic framework is here to guide you, and it is based on two simple but powerful premises:?

1. Healthcare is and should always be about the patient.
2. The design of any change is as critical as the innovation itself.?

Unfortunately, in the design and execution of large-scale IT systems, these two principles are almost guaranteed to be overlooked. The complexities of healthcare sometimes necessitate the hand of the often hard-working CTO, CIO and CFO to just buy a shiny piece of technology without carefully doing the hard stuff. This is not the technology designing, architecting or indeed subsequent ‘wiring’, but rather galvanising all relevant stakeholders to achieve a common goal around a CCC. We’re told anecdotally that some C-suite members don’t like the idea of design- and strategic thinking, and so prefer picking a piece of tech and planning how to deliver it. Or worse still, use the old "tell 'em, bribe 'em, then force 'em" strategy. We advocate for a more patient- and staff centered mindset, with the patient as our primary stakeholder and healthcare team as the second.

We suggest a six-phase framework as shown in Figure 1 to use when thinking about CCCs. The framework is chronologic in order with each phase having three critical components that must be completed before moving on. In keeping with Agile principles, expect to return to earlier phases as you obtain new insights, prompting you to reconsider previous judgements.

Phase 1: Aspirational Ascent

• Stakeholder Engagement: Engage important parties (patients, hospital administration, personnel, IT and management) by getting their opinions, discovering valuable insights and assembling a coalition group for change.
• State Discovery: Establish situational awareness by synthesizing the findings in a thorough analysis of the hospital's current state, and then outline their future needs and aspirations.
• Journey Maps: Drive patient-centricity by involving the coalition group in sketching a patient journey map to make the current patient experience tangible.?

Phase 2: Blueprint Bonanza

• Product Vision: Define a vision for the CCC so it’s clear what it’s supposed to be based on the present and future, why it makes sense to make it, who it’s for and why people will want to use it.?
• Technology Infrastructure: Find the data sources, analytics programmes, and technology infrastructure and components required to make the CCC live and breath.
• Privacy & Security: Evestigate the necessary privacy- and security dimensions, proactively, including data governance, to make sure that moral and ethical standards are considered, and that all applicable laws are followed and potential issues mitigated.

Phase 3: Architectural Alchemy

• Integration: Discovery, compare, choose and incorporate the necessary hardware-, software-, and data system components needed for the CCC.
• Analytics: Create and alter dashboards, visualisation interfaces, and analytics tools according to the desired patient journey.?
• Communication Channels: Create channels for hospital staff collaboration and communication.

Phase 4: Trailblazing Training

• Staff Training: Teach command centre operators and hospital staff how to operate the centre's equipment, procedures, and guidelines.
• Simulations: To ensure readiness for a variety of circumstances, including emergencies, conduct exercises and simulations.
• Collaboration Culture: Encourage a collaborative and data-driven decision-making culture throughout the organisation.

Phase 5: Launchpad Lift-off

• Launch: Open the command and control centre and keep an eye on its early activities.
• Performance Evaluation: Utilise indicators that are in line with the center's aims and objectives to continuously assess its success.
• Issue Resolution: During the initial launch phase, deal with any problems or difficulties that surface.

Phase 6: Evolutionary Expedition

• Continuous Improvement: Utilise feedback and data to implement a method of continuous improvement for the command center's operations.
• Technology Updates: Keep up with the most recent developments in analytics, technology, and best practices in healthcare.
• Adaption: The command centre should be expanded and modified over time to remain a patient-centred, cutting-edge, transformative force in the hospital.

We would love to crowdsource feedback on our framework to iterate it further so please do share your comments - good, bad or ugly in the comments section.

The deployment of a CCC should never be viewed as a purchase. It is a transformational intervention to an already functioning machine, CCCs can act as a strong tool that offers a powerful upgrade, but only if it focuses on patient care first and foremost.?

Over the course of the next posts we’ll be diving deeper into each phase and its individual components.?

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