More Than a Ranking: Why Relationships Are Key Indicators of Success

Andy Figallo, VP of Partner Success for Vibe Health by eVideon, discusses our organization's approach to client partnership and the steps we take to establish and foster trust with our clients through every stage of their smart room journey.

“And the award goes to!”

Every February, the Best in KLAS report recognizes software and service companies who excel in helping healthcare professionals improve patient care. The rankings are determined directly from the feedback of thousands of participants across the provider community who engage with the solutions every day. Vibe Health by eVideon was once again a high performer in the 2024 report, scoring an 89.6 in the Interactive Patient Systems category and receiving strong ratings across four customer experience pillars—culture, loyalty, product, and relationship.

Partnership is a key word that our team at eVideon doesn’t take lightly. Our team holds the role of the “partnership” in utmost regard—itis one of our brand pillars, and as such we have a dedicated team of experts who hail from various backgrounds such as Interactive Patient Services, Patient Satisfaction and clinical care settings who are known as the “Partner Success Team” as opposed to “Client Success Team.” At eVideon, the hospital and health system teams that we work with are so much more than clients. We aim to be true partners, an extension of their organizational family and aligned in their mission to elevate the healthcare journey for patients and care teams alike.

‍Establishing Trust

A core tenant to creating a KLAS-worthy partnership is the establishment of trust. Our Partner Success Team’s combined 60 years of experience collaborating with hospitals and health systems at eVideon allows us to position ourselves as knowledge experts in the field. We have seen the ebb and flow of the market and understand the volatility of the technology capabilities, which sometimes feels like a moving target depending on the day. All of this knowledge share allows us to be deliberate in establishing the trust that is needed to move the partnership forward.

We strive to be a reliable information source for our hospitals and health systems that are considering smart room technology, and this includes sharing observations that we’ve gleaned from other hospital partners. Oftentimes the path to kicking off a partnership isn’t linear—and that’s okay! It’s very common to begin the journey to transformation with what we call a “grand innovation” conversation. For instance, we might have a partner say that they want to deploy tablets by the bedside, so we’ll give them all the information they need to think through that decision. What are the technical and clinical considerations that they may not have thought about? What parameters and/or barriers exist in the existing layout that we need to examine? Working out these details in the early stages helps to move from A to B, ultimately solidifying the Scope of Work (SOW) and establishing trust that will translate throughout the project.

A great example of establishing trust is evidenced by our partnership with Valley Health. Over the last seven years, the New Jersey-based hospital has been working to enhance the current quality and experience of patient care through their use of healthcare technology. Our team worked with the Valley Health staff hand-in-glove to assure that their goals were met. At the top of the list was:

• Provide environmental controls to reduce patient frustration and increase staff time for clinical work
• Increase patient safety (fall detection, infection control, and enhanced communication between patients and care teams)
• Provide current information to patients so they’re not left wondering about their status

Thanks to collaboration with the eVideon team, we have been able to help Valley Health and their team check off each of these goals and then some! The new facility, which is expected to open doors in April of this year, includes a broad Real Time Location Services (RTLS) deployment, new augmented intelligence systems and 75-inch football monitors powered by our Vibe Health platform. This will not only aim to provide fixes to the common patient pain points and staffing inefficiencies, but also work to increase safety measures and overall satisfaction for the patient and their families.  

‍Embracing the Unknown

Once trust is established and the objectives are defined, our hospital and health system partners are at ease to dive into the transformation journey with us. This is where we like to remind our decisionmakers and their teams that our goal is not to boil the ocean—meaning, we take a very strategic and tactical approach to ensure that we can meet their highest priority objectives (i.e., patient satisfaction, administrative inefficiencies, etc.). Once we define what these three or four objectives are, we can then begin to guide them through the optimization process for these specific areas.

Here's a tried-and-true example—oftentimes our partners come to us wishing to reduce the administrative burden on their clinical teams. Nurses only have so many hours in a shift to provide care, and their time is often compromised when trying to satisfy requests that could be delegated toother teams (i.e., food service and housekeeping). To set them up for success and allow them to perform at the top of their license, we will suggest certain avenues like meal ordering service to streamline workflow. It may seem daunting because in many hospitals, meal ordering is an arduous process that requires a lot of resources. However, we can create a strong case for it when we explain that our technology puts it into the hands of the patient and frees up the nursing staff to do other things. By cutting out unnecessary parties (in this case the nurses!), you are funneling everything directly into the hands of food and nutrition services, with efficiency as your byproduct.

This scenario, and others like it, can oftentimes be unsettling or anxiety producing for our partners because it’s totally different from the norm. It may take them some time to understand the whole picture and how it works—but thanks to the already established trust, we are able to walk alongside them through the unknown in order to yield desired outcomes.

‍Enforcing Consistency in New Technologies

We’re all familiar with the phrase “consistency is key. ”Nothing could be truer than in the case of introducing new technology ideas to our partners. Our four-step approach outlined below is applied to every project we take on and has provided useful regardless of hospital size or scope of work. These steps take the guesswork out of what’s next, and provides our partners with peace of mind in each phase of the rollout.

• Our team begins each and every project the same way—design. What do want to achieve from a design/efficiency perspective? What nuances or variables exist that we need to consider relative to the design?
• Next we move on to the build. How do we build the solution in a way that honors the partner’s trust and desired outcomes while staying mindful of the parameters put forth in the SOW? Oftentimes it’s helpful here to include the organization’s subject matter experts to help flesh out any considerations we might have missed and polish the product for a successful deployment.
• The third step we follow is testing. There’s no sugar coating it—any kind of transformation journey involving smart room technology is a big investment both financially and from a timing/staffing standpoint—so it’s important to make sure you have organizational buy in from the start. A great example of an organization we partnered with that executed this step well is Tampa General Hospital (TGH). Before implementing our Vibe Health solution across more than 1,000 hospital beds, including integration with their Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system and RTLS, TGH CNIO Amit Patel opted to set up a test lab in the TGH cafeteria. As Patel explained, this was the perfect choice for validating the technology since it’s a “high-traffic area of campus where patients, team members and visitors will be able to see and interact with these new innovations.”
• The final step is launch. Go-live day is always an exciting one, but everyone who’s been involved in an implementation knows the work doesn’t stop there. In fact, the project launch is often times the beginning of an organization’s transformation journey, begging the question—What’s next? It’s important to remember that most organizations aren’t willing to commit 100% of their resources to innovation, so we have to put in the time and flexibility to meet with them and set them up for success on the front end.

In addition to the steps outlined above, another core way we enforce consistency in the rollout of new technologies is through conversations with our core governance group. While every project usually has an executive sponsor from the organization who is a champion of the project’s success, the governance group should include a representative from operations, clinical, technical and patient experience. Looping in each of these stakeholders ensures a shared vision and collaborative spirit to the project’s success, further validating a consistent approach.

Post Go-Live: What Happens Next

As previously stated, the party doesn’t stop after go-live. In fact, it’s just getting started! At eVideon, we work tirelessly to keep an active eye on the health of each our hospital and health system partners to make sure they’re getting the care and attention they need post implementation. To assess the health of each relationship, we like to look at each through the following lens:

• ‍Adoption—Seeks to answer the question Are the patients and clinical team members using the technology? Technology only works if it’s being used, so we want to make sure that the rollout is being actively used where it was originally intended.
• Support—Key to adoption is ensuring that partners are utilizing the eVideon support system. We have support staff for a reason to troubleshoot and be the boots on the ground if needed to solve any hiccups that come up along the way.‍
• Relationships—We seek to build deep and wide relationships in each and every engagement that we enter into. That relationship starts on day one and extends well beyond the go-live date. ‍
• Advocacy—It’s important to us that our partners, much like Valley Health and Tampa General have done, are advocating for other organizations to engage in their own transformation journeys. When our partners are willing to go “on the record ”and tell their peers/others in the industry about the work they’ve done with eVideon, we know the relationship is in a healthy place.‍
• Utilization—Lastly, we want to see the impact. What’s the ROI? How is the organization measuring results? These further validate the health of our platform and are good markers of success.

Conclusion: Exceptional Training Breeds Exceptional Results

In closing, it’s important to point out that a key indicator of success for every organization going through a digital transformation project is to provide ample training and continued education opportunities. Thanks to the intentionality and active listening traits instilled in our Partner Success team, eVideon has set out to be a leader in training. We found that many of the organizations we worked with were lacking in this area, and it was a need that came up time and time again.

We hope that the easy-to-use functionality of our training resources, accessible to organization leaders through a SSO portal, will be the foundation of adoption and utilization throughout the enterprise. This portal offers hundreds of documents and guides to ease the process from onboarding to post go-live, as well as “how to” videos with specific use cases in mind. Our training seeks to hit three objectives:

• ‍What is this technology and what does it do?
• Who are the end users and what do they need to be successful?
• What can technology ultimately do for the end-users?

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Are you and your organization ready to get started on your smart room journey?  

If you are ready to level up your organization’s digital approach and are considering what smart room technology could do for clinical efficiency and the patient experience, it would be our honor to support you on your organization.

‍Contact us today to take a personalized tour of the Vibe Health smart room platform!‍