Don't lose money with your technology upgrade

Hospitals nationwide have seen revenue drop after implementing new financial and clinical IT platforms, typically because their adoption teams did not plan for the impact on downstream revenue. Technology is rarely a panacea. Although an upgrade can catch some problems, it can also add a new level of complexity that will make it harder to fix poor processes if they are not addressed up front. Finance departments should be involved in design and testing phases of all IT system changes--even nonfinancial systems--to protect revenues before, during, and after implementation.