It seems that many hospitals tend to fall into a scenario where their support teams are very focused on their own particular discipline. This focus works well in theory because it creates experts in each area. A team assigned to PowerChart, for example, can maximize the abilities of the application quickly with deep knowledge. In reality, however, too much IT specialization can create an environment where many responsibilities fall through the cracks.
Cerner Millennium is a highly integrated system that weaves together many applications. A focused approach falls short when one support analyst is unaware of what other analysts are doing in the system and nobody is responsible for overall coordination. For example, this tunnel vision can hamper the efficient running of batch scheduled jobs, also known as Ops Jobs. If each application team were to own its own jobs, the overall scheduling and support of the jobs become lost.
Very recently, I talked with an organization that had too many Ops Jobs running concurrently but had no idea who should address the problem. This issue had a high impact on the performance and functionality in the Millennium applications and was affecting the clinician experience.
How does your organization manage these application tools that spread across multiple teams? Do you have an individual that maintains Ops Jobs? You can use the Comments link below to begin a dialog.