Healthcare organizations today face relentless pressure from narrowing operating margins, declining outpatient revenues, and rising expenses, as highlighted in Kaufman Hall’s National Hospital Flash Report. Headlines like these are the norm — only the phrasing and source seem to change.
To address these challenges, ambulatory practices, hospitals, and health systems increasingly turn to technology investments and mergers or acquisitions. These initiatives promise new capabilities for increased operational efficiency and greater patient care but also introduce complex challenges in system integration.
Unfortunately, many integration efforts fall short. As Jim Jacobs, President and CEO of MediQuant, noted in a recent Becker’s Hospital Review paper, “When hospitals and health systems see data integration as something the IT department has to do, end users aren’t considered and projects often aren’t funded or staffed properly.”
This approach has real and costly consequences.
The Pitfall of Siloed Systems
Healthcare operations and patient care delivery are cross-functional. Systems, departments, roles, and devices are interconnected, relying on timely, accurate information from one another. Testing isolated components in silos — without considering how they work together — doesn’t reflect the complexity of real-world operations and seamless care delivery.
When integration design and testing fail to include end users or align with real-world workflows, critical handoffs and interdependencies are missed. The result? Misaligned processes, breakdowns in care coordination, clinical errors that impact patient care, delayed go-lives, and ultimately increased costs. MAKE’s article “Preventing Medical Errors and Increasing Healthcare Efficiency” highlights a real-world patient safety event due to this type of failure.
Workflows: The Foundation for Successful Integration
To lead successful projects that cross functions, roles, and systems — especially during times of organizational change — organizations must move beyond siloed approaches. This means thoroughly testing not just systems and data, but the workflows that span departments and roles. Every handoff — whether between clinicians, administrative staff, devices, or software platforms —must be mapped and incorporated into comprehensive workflows.
Once established, these workflows serve as the foundation for test scripts and end-user training. Workflow based testing and training ensures that systems and people don’t just work independently — they function cohesively enabling unified care delivery and ultimately lowering operational costs.
As underscored in the client stories showcased in “The Importance of End-User Involvement in Workflow Testing”, it is essential to understand and validate workflows as a fundamental component to approaching change.
Integrated Testing: The Bridge Between Vision and Achievement
Achieving successful, well adopted, change requires a holistic, structured approach to testing that includes:
- Defining cross-functional workflows: Every handoff — across roles, departments, systems, and devices—must be clearly mapped and understood.
- Building comprehensive test scripts: Scripts should reflect actual workflows to validate usability, functionality, timing, and continuity of care.
- Involving end users early and often: Frontline staff must be part of the process. Their insights help surface hidden issues, increasing adoption and ensuring real-world success.
Fortunately, establishing a sustainable process for effective integration testing does not have to be complex. As outlined in “Creating Integration Test Scripts: A How-To Guide For Health Systems”, with the right tool organizations can easily capture and maintain workflows and test scripts, creating repeatable processes, making it simple for new projects to incorporate into their plans as well as ensure lasting adoption and long-term operational excellence.
How MAKE Solutions Can Help
At MAKE Solutions, we understand the critical role that integration, workflows, and testing play in operational success — especially during high-stakes transitions like system consolidations and expansions.
We specialize in helping healthcare organizations validate and optimize workflows during major system changes, supporting integration with end-to-end testing success. Our TransIT software and testing services enable organizations to:
- Document workflows
- Develop detailed, end-to-end workflow test scripts
- Validate system integration across roles, departments, and platforms
- Engage end users in testing
- Identify issues early
- Accelerate project timelines and improve go-live readiness
Whether you're implementing new technology, optimizing existing systems, or navigating a merger, integration doesn't have to be a barrier. With the right tools and approach, it can become a strategic advantage that supports sustainable, efficient practices.
MAKE Solutions is your partner with a proven framework for decreasing expenses and improving operations.
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