Ascendian Healthcare Consulting

The buzz around VNA is legitimate. Several companies have introduced, or are in development of, viable systems that can provide a client with a true VNA solution. The issue facing many potential customers, from our perspective, lies with vendors who have confused the market with the proper definition, scope, and functionality of VNA. Many organizations do not have a full understanding of their current clinical system environment, how systems interact with each other, or how to realize the benefits of a VNA. A vendor's job is to sell clients a VNA system whether it is the correct fit or not.

So what are clients to do? Who can they trust? Do they even need this new type of archive? Will a VNA even work with their current clinical systems?

Your wisest choice is to perform an analysis with people who know VNA's, are not attached to any vendor’s hip and can give you an honest clear direction on what your need is based on data from full analysis. Once the analysis has been performed, the next step is to create an RFP. A properly crafted RFP will flesh out all areas, good and bad, within each possible vendor and their product. A poorly drafted RFP can place you at severe risk of procuring a system that will not meet your needs and pose problems down the road.

VNA makes sense as a perfect strategic decision for IT by both unifying storage while addressing systems that utilize objects in multiple formats. The process each vendor uses to store disparate data is what sets them apart. (More on that in a later blog.)

Your VNA is coming. The question is: Do you know how all of your clinical systems currently store data? Can you make an informed decision based on your enterprise requirements? Will you let the vendor tell you what you want to hear? Or will you make an informed decision that brings your disparate systems' data into a unified archive the positions you for long term success?