Technology Selection, Workflow Design, and Migration Readiness
The problem
- Clinical data collection and practice management sit on separate systems that do not talk to each other
- Finance and operations produce different numbers from the same activity, so nobody trusts the reporting
- You are making decisions from month-end reports instead of managing in the month
- You know you need to change systems, and you are afraid a migration will break the field
- Every center has its own way of doing things, so there is no process to migrate
The work
I started with what the organization needed the systems to do, not with what vendors were selling.
That meant documenting current-state workflows across intake, eligibility and authorization, scheduling, clinical data collection, supervision, documentation, and billing. It meant separating the places where process was genuinely undefined from the places where it simply varied by center. From there I built standard operating procedures so a consistent process existed before migration, because migrating inconsistent practice into a new platform only reproduces that inconsistency in a more expensive system. I also established shared data definitions and a single metric set so numbers reconcile across functions.
With requirements built from real workflow, I supported vendor evaluation: a weighted requirements matrix, structured demonstration scripts so vendors were compared on identical criteria, a reference check process, and guidance on contract and implementation terms.
The final phase was migration readiness. That covered data cleanup and field mapping, a phased implementation sequence, role-specific training, a super user model at each site, go live support, and defined monitoring through the first ninety days.
The organization entered its migration with defined workflows, documented procedures, trained staff, and a clear understanding of exactly what data was moving and why.
The technology change was managed as an operational change, which is what it actually is.