5 quick lessons in integration

November 9, 2015
Devin Soelberg Strategic Partnerships

Many of you reading this are uneasy about blood (stop reading if you’re about to pass out), but what you should really be afraid of is unnecessary blood transfusions. Gauss Surgical can give you the specific stats, but we’re convinced. Their application, Triton, captures pictures of blood-filled specimens in the OR and calculates the estimated blood loss of that specimen using computer algorithms. Better blood calculations, increased awareness, fewer unnecessary transfusions (and it’s FDA cleared). Gauss recently went live with Triton at HackensackUMC (press release), powered by Redox.

Since it was the first commercial go-live with Epic integration for Gauss and the first live Redox application at Hackensack, we want to sum up five quick lessons learned:

1. Limit scope and get live fast

Gauss showed real product maturity by sticking to their core offering. They have an expanding list of features, but were laser focused and quick to be humble with expectations – built credibility among the veteran IT folks at HUMC that have done integrations dozens of times and appreciated not dealing with entrepreneurs with “bigger eyes than their stomachs”. Don’t let your own vision for the product hamstring your judgment of how to get live. Less is more.

2. Start with a champion, end with a champion

To get into a health system, you almost always need a strong champion. They really get things started, then in the blink of an eye, the project is almost done and guess who shows up to help carry the torch across the finish line? The champion enters stage left, helping to get past the inevitable 11th hour issues that come up and threatens go-live. Turns out they’ve been behind the scenes the whole time, sanding down the rough spots from within the organization. You probably only see half of the moments where your champion actually make the project happen at all.

3. Make sure that user training is synced up with the project plan

At Epic, I used to tell my health system executives counterparts that good (and timely) training can compensate for a lot of weak build and testing, but poor (or late) training will scuttle even the best build and testing. It’s easy to be blindsided by training while you’re staring at the technical project plan day in and day out. Don’t overlook training. It’s way more than having a few 1-pagers and tip sheets. It’s about confidence and adoption. Make training one of the things that you never compromise on. Be known for good (and timely) training. We’ve now baked this into our implementation project plans.

4. Time is relative

As entrepreneurs, we live in the now. 1 week sprints, 3 minute pitches, daily run rate. Health systems don’t live in the now. 12 month fiscal years, 24 month GPO contracts, 36 month Meaningful Use attestation windows. Prepare for some whiplash when days turn into weeks. It’s normal. Couple areas where Redox was able to add a couple of mph:

5. Join an Accelerator

We met the Gauss team (along with 21 other amazing companies) at TMCx this summer. That’s a major reasons why Redox participates in accelerators. Of course we enjoy the business development, value canvasing, and pitch practice, but our favorite part is rubbing shoulders with some of the brightest and most creative teams in healthcare innovation. It’s easy to be impressed by Gauss’ product, but we got to know the masterminds behind the app. Iron sharpens iron. If it makes sense, join a healthcare focused accelerator to learn from others and connect with their partner health systems. [Note that applications are open for the next TMCx cohort and we highly recommend it. Tell them Redox sent you.]


Quick shout out to a few folks at Hackensack that were aces through the entire project. Dozens of hands make light work, but Jeff (Sr. Systems Analyst) and Cindy (Clinical Systems Analyst) were the creme de la creme. Hackensack IT is known in the industry for getting things done, and these two made me look forward to the next time that we implement at Hackensack. Thanks J & C.

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