COVID has changed a lot of things for all of us over the past two years. For many, family gatherings were either postponed indefinitely or turned into virtual events. For some, grocery shopping went from visiting a store to shopping via an application with delivery either to their front door or to their trunk, and streaming movies replaced time spent in movie theaters. The American workplace as we knew it changed as well. According to an article published by the Pew Research Center, prior to the pandemic, only 20% of Americans worked from home. That number rose to 71% in December of 2020. When asked, 54% of Americans would want to continue to work from home after the outbreak ends.
At Picis, we were faced with the challenge of how we continue to implement our perioperative software during a time when countries were banning traveland hospitals were banning or restricting vendorsfrom entering their campuses. Pivoting to our new remote reality was important not only to Picis but also to the hospitals we serve and the patients they serve. Perioperative software is important to the well-being and safety of patients. Being in the middle of a large project, replacing a healthcare system failing perioperative application, we were not in a position to cease operations. For that reason, we initiated remote demos, remote trainings, remote testing and even remote go-lives. We learned a lot along the way and have successfully delivered countless go-lives to many happy customers across North America. We have learned that remote implementations allow us flexibility and more time to dedicate to the customer; remote implementations save the customer money as they do not have to pay travel expenses incurred to bring our consultants on site; and we have learned that we are able to have more subject matter experts available to support the go-live process as we are no longer limited to the subject matter experts that are onsite during the go-live.
As the pandemic is entering the endemic phase, we at Picis find that many customers are still hesitant to have vendors onsite. In consideration of the flexibility and cost savings that remote project work provides to our customers, and the flexibility and work-life balance it provides our consultants, I am happy that we learned as much as we did over these past two years and have become so proficient at remote go-lives.
About the Author
Sonia Nagel, Vice President, Professional Services
During her time at Picis, Sonia has enjoyed working with numerous customers and coworkers to improve project management processes and customer experiences. Sonia comes to us with a hospital background and brings with her more than 20 years of Health Information Technology experience, the last 12 of which were spent focused on Application Support, Implementation and Customer Success.
In addition to her experience, she holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems Technologies, a PMP (Project Management Professional), RHIT (AHIMA Registered Health Information Technician) and a CHTS (AHIMA Certified Healthcare Technology Implementation Support Specialist).
Sonia believes that every day affords an opportunity to learn and grow both personally and professionally and she appreciates all that she learns from her customers and coworkers. When Sonia isn’t at work, she is often going for a run, a bike ride or hiking with her family and friends..
