To read: ~ 5 minutes
When hospitals deploy new information and communications technology, the implementation process demands significant investment in time, resources, and coordination across clinical and IT teams.
This complexity isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.
Thoughtful implementation protects what matters most: the clinicians who use these systems daily and the patients who depend on them. Rush the process or skip critical steps, and even sophisticated technology becomes just another source of frustration on an already overwhelmed hospital floor.
The key is managing implementation with the same clinical rigor you’d apply to any intervention that touches patient safety.
Monica Trepicone, a registered nurse, spent 15 years of her clinical career in the operating room. And now, as a ClinicalInformatics Specialist- RN at Connexall, she helps hospitals deploy technologies that connect people, tasks, and devices.
As a result, she has a deep understanding of what’s at stake in a clinical setting and why communications systems require the resource-intensive implementation approach they receive.
Crossed wires put patients at risk
Hospital staff work in high-pressure environments, where split-second decisions can have lasting consequences. Routine workflows and intuitive equipment are essential, as they enable healthcare staff to focus on completing the task at hand, rather than worrying about how to accomplish it.
When new tools disrupt established workflows, they create a cognitive burden at the worst possible time. Staff who can normally navigate critical moments without pause suddenly have to stop and figure out how to proceed. And in some cases, the difficulty of using the new tool hinders them from actually moving forward.
Recognizing the stakes, operating rooms scrutinize new equipment heavily. “In the operating room, you can’t just bring in something that we’ve never touched or felt before,” Trepicone explains. She notes that staff rigorously vet even seemingly simple adjustments, like switching out the types of sterile gloves. They go to great lengths to ensure that the tactile sensitivity and quality are conducive to the work they need to perform. If they aren’t, they could compromise patient safety and outcomes.
Communications failures are equally as dangerous. When alarms don’t reach the right people at the right time, patient safety suffers just as much as it would with faulty surgical equipment. Patients fall, V-tach events go unnoticed, and rapid response teams take longer to assemble.
Evaluating communications platforms with OR-level scrutiny
Trepicone’s experience has shown her that new communications technologies, such as alarm management and fall prevention systems, require the same rigorous evaluation that we apply to medical supplies in the operating room.
Devoting time and resources to the implementation process helps ensure that they blend into existing workflows and work as intended from the very start.
While the immediacy of this alignment might be a nice-to-have in some industries, it’s non-negotiable in a clinical setting. Like sterile gloves in the OR, hospital staff must be able to pick up these tools quickly, without disruption, because there isn’t space for hesitation or trial-and-error when lives are on the line.
Through Trepicone’s work, she’s also identified three areas where implementation teams need to direct their careful attention.
Engaging clinical stakeholders
Implementation teams must embed their own clinical experts to engage with the hospital’s clinical staff from the very beginning. “We don’t implement anything without having the nursing team at the table,” Trepicone shares. “We are nurses, so it’s nurses speaking with nurses.”
This peer-to-peer interaction is essential. It enables the implementation team to establish and build trust with the hospital staff who will eventually use the communications solution. Staff members are more likely to buy into the implementation process when it involves experts who understand their daily pressures.
This buy-in is necessary for adoption and, in turn, patient safety. Reflecting on projects she’s worked on in her career, Trepicone says, “I’ve been in facilities where the phone is in a drawer,” referencing a device used as part of a broader alarm notification system. “Why is it in a drawer? Well, because the implementation team didn’t have that initial buy-in.”
When communications systems aren’t used consistently, it creates confusion and forces staff to develop workarounds that are often less reliable and lead to missed or delayed responses during critical moments.
Learn more about how we build trust with clinicians in this blog.
Assessing clinical workflows
It’s also important for implementation teams to take the time to understand how hospitals currently operate before introducing new systems. When clinical experts are involved on the implementation side, this is far easier to accomplish.
Trepicone notes that her team at Connexall will visit hospitals in person to get the lay of the land. “We will go on site and do an assessment,” she explains. “We speak with the key end users, the clinicians and nurse managers, to identify any pain points they have.” They conduct this assessment across units within the same hospital, given that each tends to have its own unique processes.
With a deeper understanding of established workflows, and how they differ from unit to unit, it’s easier to determine where new solutions can help and how to deploy them without causing dangerous disruption.
Testing and refining solutions
What works on paper doesn’t always work in practice, making testing an important part of the implementation process.
Trepicone and the team at Connexall aim to test new communications solutions in real-world settings, which are fast-paced and unpredictable, rather than controlled demo environments. This is the only way to see whether the solutions are capable of performing under pressure, and if they can help clinicians do the same without getting in the way.
For the Connexall team, implementation doesn’t end when the communications system goes live in the hospital. They stay connected with the hospital to gather and respond to feedback so that the system continues to serve clinicians over time.
The team typically gives hospitals a two-week window to use the solution and document any speed bumps. Following that period, the team will come in and make any required changes. For example, with an alarm management system, they might adjust who gets notified (and how quickly) in different clinical scenarios.
Moving forward with discipline
When communications solutions break down in a hospital, it disrupts day-to-day work and compromises patient safety. As a result, they require the same time-intensive evaluation that surgical supplies and instruments receive.
Implementation teams need to uphold this level of rigor now, and continue to do so as communications technologies advance. Trepicone shares that virtual nursing, i.e., using telehealth platforms to allow nurses to assess patients and provide guidance without being physically present, is one noteworthy development on the horizon.
Virtual nursing platforms hold significant potential to address staffing challenges and improve access to quality care. While the temptation to move quickly is strong, implementation teams must still proceed with caution and care to ensure that they enhance, not disrupt, workflows critical to patient safety.
