Stakeholder Communication

Friday, July 18, 2008

Anyone who has ever read a management book knows that you need to have "effective stakeholder communication". The trick is figuring out what that really means and how to accomplish it!

The NHS in England is running what many reckon is the largest civilian IT project in the world: The National Programme for IT (NPfIT). It is very ambitious. It will link all health care providers into one seamless IT system. Communicating how this system will work and what the benefits will be is a daunting task and the NHS has published a YouTube video that does a great job of doing just that. Click here to view the video.

For those of you in North America, take note of how the whole system provides complete patient documentation for all clinicians involved in patient care. Even though our systems are more fragmented and do not have the same "centralized oversight" that the NHS provides, I think we will see more programs like this in the U.S. and in Canada. The opportunity to improve patient outcomes Continuity of care is far too important for us not to evolve in this direction.

Hopefully you noticed the ambulance system. Yes, it is Siren! Siren is currently deployed at EEAS, YAS, and WMAS, and is due to be deployed in another three Trusts in the coming year.

While the video is very good at explaining the vision, it does not answer any questions or address any concerns that stakeholders have. Like any project, the NPfIT has had its share of difficulties. Many parts of the project are late, the bill keeps growing and many people are confused about what is happening and why.

To address this need, the NHS re-shot the scenes from the video and this time had the actors bring up questions about the project, such as "Why this..." and "How will we...". The result is a video that is a both innovative and humorous. I think it is a great way of dealing with stakeholder communication.

Click here to view the video.