3.Rework IT Processes

Although acclimating end users to wireless technology commands the most attention during a deployment, CIOs can't neglect the IT staffers who need to be trained to support the new equipment.

Five years ago, when VP and CIO Eric Yablonka gazed on the hole in the ground that would become the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital building, he saw a technology greenfield. There, he planted a broadband wireless infrastructure. Yablonka knew wireless technologies were becoming more important to hospital operations because medical staff are mobile and the latest medical equipment, such as IV pumps and cardiac monitors, is being built with wireless capabilities.

By building a wireless broadband network into the hospital's infrastructure, Yablonka would be able to support all the wireless-enabled equipment. He would also help the hospital staff achieve one of its top goals for the 155-bed paediatrics facility: making the hospital quieter. He was able to forgo the traditional (and disruptive) overhead loudspeaker system by equipping nurses with VoIP mobile phones. Not only have the phones cut the noise level, but nurses can also respond to patients more quickly. The cycle time from patient call to nurse response has been reduced significantly, Yablonka says, because nurses can be called from anywhere in the building.

But when the project started, Yablonka's staff wasn't large enough, nor did it have all of the necessary skills to build and support a wireless network, including the expertise to support the equipment that routed calls for the VoIP system. The nurses' VoIP phones caused subtle changes in the IT department's processes, including how different types of alarms and patient calls are routed through the network, Yablonka says.

He brought in vendors to design and build the broadband infrastructure so that his staffers could shadow their technicians. UCH IT staff also worked alongside the vendor reps as they troubleshot VoIP router problems.

The deployment of the wireless infrastructure was one of the catalysts for bringing the clinical engineering staff - those who service patient-facing devices such as IV pumps - under IT's umbrella. Yablonka wanted to unite the two support teams because more and more patient devices are computerized and can transmit data wirelessly.

It wasn't hard to sell the wireless technology to the IT staff, because they wanted to learn new skills, but Yablonka had to ensure that the clinical staff understood why wireless broadband was so important to UCH's future. "I don't recall anyone really resisting, but they hadn't thought through the implications" of the convergence of IT and medicine, Yablonka says.

Yablonka sold the project as an opportunity for the clinical staff to learn about the latest medical devices, which would become critical as other UCH buildings were retrofitted with the wireless networks.

And because he spent time managing the expectations both of end users and his own staff about what working wirelessly would mean to them, he's reaping the reward of their enthusiasm and excitement. "They now see the possibilities of this convergence, and see opportunity and career growth," Yablonka says. "They know we're doing something special here."

SIDEBAR: A Capital Idea

A class in mobile etiquette can go a long way

When Capital One gave its employees the ability to work from anywhere, it offered a workshop for them to learn the new etiquette for communicating with each other. The two-hour workshop covers best practices for effective meeting management and e-mail practices with on-the-go colleagues, such as how to structure the body of an e-mail to quickly categorize topics like a situation, requests, actions or background. So far, nearly 2000 employees have taken the class.