Healthcare organizations this year have been tasked with managing an almost overnight shift to remote work, leaving IT leaders adopting new knowledge management strategies, according to Andrew Graf, chief product strategist at TeamDynamix, an IT service and project management platform.
During a Sept. 28 webinar hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by TeamDynamix, Mr. Graf discussed why knowledge-centered service should be part of every healthcare organization's IT service management strategy as additional support to self-service, or the ability for end users to find answers to their questions and fix their own incidents.
In April and May, TeamDynamix surveyed about 166 different organizations across multiple industries to get a sense of how prepared people felt working from home in response to the challenges stirred by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the opportunities the company saw to help organizations improve their IT readiness was focusing on self-service and knowledge base through knowledge-centered service, which involves collecting, organizing and distributing customer service support content across the organization.
Five areas of focus for rolling out a knowledge centered service initiative:
1. Ensure knowledge content is accessible through the IT service management platform. To fully implement a knowledge-centered service style, the hospital's team members must know how to easily use the content available to them within their organization's ITSM system.
2. Start small. Pilot the knowledge centered service guide among a small group, such as the service desk analysts, where it can have the biggest impact. "Some of the most effective approaches we've seen is when there's a nucleus of people, maybe it's a single department or function, where we get a lot of questions that can be answered via knowledge content or self service. Start with this group, who will refine the processes, prove it and then move out," Mr. Graf said.
3. Move slowly. Don't try to upload all existing documentation into the knowledge base too quickly; instead, work with the small pilot group to create content on an on-demand basis. Mr. Graf cited a client TeamDynamix worked with that had a goal of creating 200 knowledge-based articles in the first six months of their knowledge centered service roll out. After setting up technicians and knowledge creators to develop and review content, the client was able to implement coaching sessions between managers and creators and foster a collaborative environment, creating 1,400 knowledge based articles during the first six months of the implementation.
4. Get trained in knowledge-centered service. Invest in training for the knowledge centered service management team so that leaders feel empowered and confident when guiding the rest of the organization in using the process.
5. Stay motivated. Building the knowledge base should be an ongoing process; it's important for management teams to continue to explore ways to improve content and increase customer usage. Implementing metrics to show how much of a difference the system makes and how knowledge content has decreased the number of inbound requests is vital to relay to the rest of the organization.
Click here to view the full webinar.
Click here to view TeamDynamix's case study, and click here to participate in TeamDynamix's survey about IT support during the pandemic.