PIEmatrix Review

EHR consulting firm implementing EHR systems at hospitals

One of our customers, Navin Haffty & Associates, is a mid-sized consulting firm that implements EHR (Electronic Health Records) software at hospitals around the country. They had a challenge where they were growing fast, their projects were getting more complex, and the risk of issues with their end-client engagements were getting higher. The EHR vendor they work with also had a challenge where implementations at hospitals were not consistently successful.

Both the consulting firm and the vendor realized they needed to establish an implementation methodology for each product module they were deploying at the hospitals. Together, they started to form a common process that contained lessons learned and best practices. However, they quickly found that the tools they were using, such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project, were failing to meet their needs because they were not made to drive methodology. Secondly, their tools were too complex for their field consultants and end-client team members to use.

The consulting firm found PieMatrix and decided to invest in using the PieMatrix “Pie” platform as their methodology planning, execution, and project portfolio governance tool. They hired PieMatrix to help them train their internal Pie trainer, who would then deploy and train all of their internal consultants. They used Pie’s design storyboarding features to quickly map out their new process methodologies. Some of it was imported from Project and others were defined by their project managers.

They found the ready-made project templates in Pie to be perfect for kicking off new projects with just a few clicks. People assignments to pre-defined roles were just drag and drop. And project tasks were connected with workflow links for fast planning and email notification.

They are now running the majority of their revenue-generating projects for their EHR implementations in Pie. Their end-client team members are also using Pie to quickly know not only what work is on their plate for the week, but also how to get that work done really well. Their Pie how-to knowledge base is integrated into each action step. As their projects proceed, they are able to capture lessons learned and re-bake them into their Pie project templates to reduce future project risks and issues.

Healthcare technology company improving their deployment at hospitals

In this scenario, Precyse, a PieMatrix customer, is a well-known services and products company that sells a suite of products to help improve medical coding to help hospitals and physician practices meet financial and compliance needs.

Their lifeblood is to ensure their customers are happy with the new coding software that they purchase and implement. Precyse needed a better way to ensure all new end-customer implementations were done faster while maintaining high quality. They had purchased a well-known project management tool, but soon found out about PieMatrix. After reviewing Pie, they realized that a methodology implementation tool like Pie – which also has project and portfolio management features – was more conducive to what was needed to improve their implementation life cycle timeline.

They converted all of their Microsoft Project templates into new Pie templates. In doing so, they found the visual Pie user interface was in line with how their deployment life cycle was designed, with phases, sub-phases, and action steps. They also needed something visually for dashboard reporting since the executives needed real-time updates. They found the Pie Dashboard was easy to use without needing to set up.

Energy efficiency company improving new product development life cycles

This firm provides energy saving benefits to residences and businesses in multiple states across the country. They have a suite of products to help reduce energy costs with both processes and products. Their New Product Development (NPD) department is challenged with constantly designing new energy solution products and services to meet their market needs. They were using tools like Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project, but found these tools were not dynamic enough to connect multiple departments within their NPD processes.

They found Pie from PieMatrix and quickly converted their static processes into a dynamic and visual methodology in Pie. They found it easy to drag and drop new action steps and reorganize their NPD process to better meet their life cycle goals with quality while minimizing risks and lowering time. They were able to involve multiple people at the same time with Pie’s collaboration features. This allowed fast design with quick approvals.

Once their projects kicked off, their team members found it was easier to collaborate directly from inside Pie than by sending emails. This allowed them to keep all conversations contextually located with the task at hand.

Their executives for the first time can monitor their 60+ new product development projects in real time. They have and enjoy the ability to quickly filter their portfolio view with a single click. They also found that project execution was becoming more reliable since all team members were on the same page, sharing processes and the how-to for getting that work done. The NPD group members say they are now becoming more innovative in both new products and in their processes on how to get their products designed and into the market.