As more caregivers begin using automated I.T. tools to improve care, health care organizations are seeking out the most efficient and reliable technology infrastructures to support them, whenever and wherever they need them. Catholic Health Initiatives (Denver, Colorado) recently transformed the way they manage and deliver I.T. services at their health care facilities across the country by adopting an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)—a framework of best practices consolidated from the experiences of I.T. organizations worldwide.

"As organizations become increasingly dependent on I.T., the quality and reliability of those I.T. services must also increase," says Cindy Tame, vice president of technology services. "Improving health care doesn't only concern what's happening on the wards. Hospitals' business offices are also looking to I.T. to give them a competitive edge, as well as to help improve business productivity, workflow, and patient safety. Implementing ITIL gave us the tools and flexibility to better manage our portfolio of I.T. services so that we can meet both our business and patient safety goals."

A Framework for Efficient Business Processes
ITIL outlines an extensive set of management procedures that help businesses achieve high financial quality and valuable, efficient I.T. operations. These procedures are supplier-independent and are developed to provide guidance across the breadth of I.T. infrastructure, development, and operations. Before instituting ITIL, Catholic Health had two data centers, which meant there were two sets of I.T. support and two separate help desks. "Essentially, we had two different practices for servicing customers, leading to fragmented and disparate I.T. service delivery across our 100+ care facilities. We wanted to deliver the same, quality care consistently coast-to-coast," says Michael Perdue, director of customer support for Catholic Health. "Our team realized that ITIL was the solution to merge the disparate data centers and help desks into one, so that all our customers had the same standardized care experience, no matter which location they were visiting."

Once the organization determined that ITIL was the way to go, the next step was to determine a starting point for implementing it. By evaluating their unique pain points in delivering I.T. services and determining where they could easily pick up some 'quick wins' in their strategy, Catholic Health identified four key areas to start with—Service Desk, Incident Management, Problem Management, and Change Management. From there, Tame and her team created a support advisory committee that was comprised of multidisciplinary I.T. managers who educated their staff on the ITIL I.T. service management philosophy, and trained them on the new ITIL processes.

"The support advisory committee standardized our approach to developing ITIL processes, and communicated those goals and processes down to their subsequent teams. The committee also established measurements to ensure these processes successfully met our previously agreed upon service levels," says Tame.

Defining metrics was another important way that Catholic Health identified and created their individual ITIL processes. "Metrics are necessary to gauge the performance of a process, letting us know what processes are working and which ones aren't," Tame says. "They also identify areas for opportunity and improvement in I.T. service delivery. For example, we found that measuring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), critical success factors, and areas of concern were the most beneficial to our process improvement."

Executive Support Determines Long-Term Success
Tame and Perdue both agree that one of the most essential components of a successful ITIL implementation is executive buy-in. "Getting the support and blessing of the executives at Catholic Health eased the transition and helped foster an environment of support for the new I.T. service structure," says Perdue. "I would go so far as to say that ITIL is impossible without executive support."

Because maintaining a high level of acceptance over the long haul can be a challenge, Catholic Health decided to evaluate each staff member's adherence to ITIL processes in their individual performance evaluations, ultimately making them accountable for following the new ITIL processes. The "Process Owners" at Catholic Health, or the staff responsible for their department's processes, were also evaluated with annual process improvement plans. "Process development assessments are conducted at Catholic Health every six months to determine the maturity of the processes and consistently monitor how they are performing," says Perdue.

Going forward, Perdue expects to see high returns with the quality of their I.T. services, as they begin to integrate more changes to improve operating practices.

"To achieve you must believe," he says. "This is an organization-wide effort, it cannot succeed if information silos are allowed to exist. If you don't believe you can get your entire facility behind this, or any other improvement initiative in your organization, it won't work. But if you're willing to stick to your vision and put the effort into achieving it, ITIL will definitely deliver."