{"id":29408,"date":"2020-05-01T16:59:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T20:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/?p=29408"},"modified":"2023-09-12T09:46:39","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T13:46:39","slug":"microsoft-teams-and-healthcare-lessons-learned-from-early-adopters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/microsoft-teams-and-healthcare-lessons-learned-from-early-adopters\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Teams and Healthcare: Lessons Learned from Early Adopters"},"content":{"rendered":"

While most people have seen immediate benefits using Microsoft Teams in healthcare, some have encountered challenges. We share a few pitfalls and solutions we\u2019ve learned from early adopters.<\/h2>\n
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Microsoft Teams<\/a> has great potential to help employees<\/a> in virtually every field, but especially healthcare workers. Teams\u2019 voice or video meeting capabilities, its power to enable real-time chat messaging between groups, and its tools that allow healthcare workers to share documents securely drive not only collaboration but also promote social distancing.<\/p>\n

In this blog, I will discuss some valuable \u201clessons learned\u201d that will help healthcare leaders identify obstacles and compress Teams\u2019 time to value as they prepare to meet the challenges ahead.<\/p>\n\n

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Lesson 1: VPN<\/h2>\n

Problem:<\/strong> Existing VPN capabilities (licensing and bandwidth) are common constraints. For example, Teams\u2019 video-chat capabilities are powerful in healthcare settings, but they can eat up a lot of bandwidth, especially in large organizations.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong> First, read my colleague Carmen Fontana\u2019s<\/a> advice for increasing your VPN speed<\/a>. Then, explore cloud-based VPN services, or skip VPN altogether and access Teams directly from the cloud. In any case, fast, secure, reliable access is essential.<\/p>\n

Security is another VPN concern. To address this problem, look into \u201csplit tunneling\u201d your VPN.<\/a> Split tunneling allows you to choose which traffic goes through your VPN server and which goes through your internet services provider.<\/p>\n

Lesson 2: Access<\/h2>\n

Problem:<\/strong> Often, access lists and groups are out-of-date or not configured for Teams. That can leave some employees locked out of Teams and frustrated.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong> Consider using your existing configurations (Active Directory, Email Distributions or EHR access models) instead of building new lists from scratch.<\/p>\n

Lesson 3: Governance<\/h2>\n

Problem:<\/strong> Situations arise leaving many leaders too busy to focus on governance. Unfortunately, key governance decisions are difficult to undo once in place and have long-term impacts.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong> Use an existing leadership group already working as a productive team, educate them on Teams essentials, and keep it simple. Below are the major decisions to be made for every Teams deployment:<\/p>\n

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  1. Team levels and owners. Sample questions: Who determines levels and owners, and do I want to be able to add members, remove members, and promote or delete owners?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Document retention policies and team naming conventions. Sample question: Do I need to increase or lower the time period for retaining files? Do I need to add a new team name or change an existing name?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Guest access. Sample question: Do I need to limit or control access by anonymous or external users?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Features and Functions (navigation, messaging, screen share, calls, meetings, co-authoring for some). Sample question: How much do I need to customize features rather than deploying them out-of-the-box?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Approved third-party apps<\/a>. Sample question: Will my organization need to surface third-party applications (e.g., Salesforce, SAS, and more) in Teams?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. Data security: Sample question: How do I keep my team\u2019s data safe?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. Deployment specifics. Sample questions: Do I need to add or modify the security settings of my team to limit access to documents or resources shared within my team?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Lesson 4: Initial and On-Going Training<\/h2>\n

    Problem:<\/strong> Teams is an intuitive product, but people within your organization will have varying levels of technical skill and comfort with new technologies.<\/p>\n

    Solution:<\/strong> Use Microsoft\u2019s free materials to tailor training for each user group.<\/p>\n