Six Top Tips for Post-Implementation: Personal Insights from Aaniie COO Robert Smith

As part of Aaniie’s ongoing leadership series, Bob Smith, Chief Operating Officer shares his expertise on implementation, along with tips for what successful care agencies do post-implementation.

As COO, Smith oversees Aaniie’s daily administrative and operational aspects, including implementation services, contract management, and ensuring customer success.

With nearly three decades of experience in healthcare IT, Smith works closely with providers to improve processes and enhance outcomes.

To amplify your implementation success, Smith shares his six top tips for post-implementation.

1. Create a procedure manual

The right software solution is integral to your business. Once you find the right personal care or home care software for your business,  we recommend creating a procedure manual for your organization during or after implementation. One of the biggest mistakes people make post-implementation is failing to document their processes.

Key Items to Note in a Procedure Manual:

• What is our best way of doing things?
• How do we put things in the system?
• What tags can be added for clarification?
  • This is especially helpful with e-billing and electronic visit verification (EVV) to prevent problems that may affect reimbursement. 

However, be mindful that all agencies work differently. Writing everything down is essential to note how things should be done for your business. 

2. Attend additional training

Smith highly recommends that people prioritize post-implementation activities such as attending additional training offered by their software vendor, watching suggested videos, and staying updated with their platform’s new offerings. Software is not static; it constantly improves, and new functionality is always being added to make processes more efficient.

Keep an eye on what your vendor is releasing, the latest functionality, and new ways of doing things. This can be very helpful to you in the long term as the system continues to grow.

3. Reach out for feedback from your employees

The best agencies always look at improving everything, including utilizing the full breadth of the software system. Similarly, you should always strive for continuous improvement within your agency. 

Employees often have ideas about better processes, so sending out a survey every couple of months is beneficial to get ideas on improving and streamlining your operations. 

4. Engage with your platform vendor

Engaging with your vendor is essential. One way to do this is to offer ideas for improving the software. Everybody has some, right? You should submit those to your vendor now.

While only some of your submissions will be developed, you never know what will be key and what will be the next development that comes out of the system.

At Aaniie, the development teams continually look for customers’ ideas for improving their experience to help grow their business.

5. Get involved in the user community

Attending user groups and joining your vendor’s Facebook or social media group is a great way to interact and help drive the direction of your partner company. 

Communities of organizations using the same software are full of people with innovative ideas who are more than happy to suggest trying something new, even outside the solution itself.

These groups also become great places for you to go and get support as you try to move your organization forward, grow, and be successful.

Always remember your “Why”

One of the things Smith encourages people to do before they even start the implementation is to create a list of reasons why they’re choosing to go down this path. What are you hoping to achieve as you do this? What is your goal?

Have you remembered your WHY?

An unfortunate thing Smith has seen many people do is slip out of ‘implementation mode’ and go into ‘maintenance mode’ once their solution is up and running. You’re live and operating, but have you implemented everything you wanted to when you purchased the solution and decided to switch?

When switching systems, most people duplicate what they’re already doing. This is a first step and an excellent methodology for moving from one vendor to another, but you shouldn’t stop there.

If you’ve created a plan and your list of what you hope to achieve, you can refer to it once you’ve implemented the system and ask, “Did we achieve all of this?” If not, perhaps there are things you missed during the core implementation.

Smith advises users to “always check that list, go back, and stay in ‘implementation mode’ until you’ve implemented everything that motivated you to make the switch.” 

Always remember your WHY.

In conclusion, the most important thing is don’t stay static. You should be evolving and growing along with your software vendor. Your agency’s long-term outcome will improve by continually improving and taking advantage of new processes, staying current, being a part of the community, and proposing innovations.

To learn more about Aaniie and our implementation process, don’t hesitate to request a free demo.