Why agile project management is the golden ticket to improving healthcare during a pandemic

The impact of the pandemic has been profound for our digital future, as very few were prepared to respond to this unforeseen disruption. To deal with its unique challenges, we witnessed a pivot to online service delivery and interactions - between customers, employees, and citizens. 

For the Australian healthcare sector, this has also been a wake-up call. Industry bodies are calling for new digital delivery models to keep up with the forecasted pressure on our healthcare system, driven by the impact of COVID-19 as well as an aging population. Yet for meaningful and sustained transformation to occur, the approach also needs to change. Siloed and stepwise approaches to digital innovation projects have proven to be expensive and a significant waste of time, delivering continued suboptimal results in the pursuit of improving health care. 

For innovative industries, such as software development, project teams have embraced the Agile Manifesto. This methodology is made up of a set of values and principles centred around empowering teams to innovate, adapt, and deliver high value at a rapid pace. 

There has never been a more important time for healthcare organisations to consider adopting a similar approach to deliver consumer-centric health services. This article aims to look at Agile practices and its potential to address the challenges stifling innovation within the industry, and the role of collaboration to unlock this as challenges arise.

The broader case for an agile approach 

The recent National Digital Health Strategy highlights the importance of investing in a digitally-enabled foundation to enhance the patient experience, clinical workflows, and overall service delivery. Yet it is important to realise that solutions suited for the patients of today are not always suited for patients of tomorrow. Thus, a redesign of processes is paramount - starting with a culture of innovation that embraces continuous improvement. 

Agile best practices spearhead this type of innovative thinking – in an industry bound by processes designed to minimise risk and flexibility.  One of the most useful aspects of Agile teams is its emphasis on collaboration. Instead of planning the entire project upfront with minimal room to adapt as you go, Agile teams come together and share responsibility and accountability as they continuously plan throughout the project. 

For the healthcare industry, an agile approach to project management is desirable because the goal is to achieve results that improve patient care – but delivered in a shorter development cycle. For clinical trials and research conducted by medical device manufacturing or biotech and pharmaceutical organisations, teams can start with a usable prototype and make iterations based on new insights from the users, external tools, and industry knowledge. The result is a tested and high-quality release, with a quicker time-to-market. 

More than a software vendor, but a collaborative partner 

Agile practices are not limited to Research and Development (R&D); they can be applied to rethinking clinical care models. By using an iterative framework, the methodology calls for near-constant communication with the customer or patient - from clarifying needs and expectations to collaborating on fixes - to create a truly adaptive and responsive caring system. 

Given the industry is inherently complex, especially now, it’s important to have a system in place to ensure the needs of any patient or customer are served in a timely manner. One way to do this is embracing a collaborative cloud-based platform that enables information exchange and system interoperability between different health providers in a secure and scalable way. This not only would remove barriers to communication from health providers involved, but it would also enable seamless access to real-time, accurate health information and services. 

Ultimately, a new agile approach puts the onus on healthcare organisations to continuously improve, integrating new medical knowledge and a changing regulatory environment. This is necessary in the pursuit of better health outcomes and ensure sector sustainability in the long term. 

With Smartsheet – the enterprise platform for dynamic work – you can make the move to more efficient project management today with our 30-day free trial that comes with access to many pre-structured and customisable templates. Streamline your projects by following these best practices to increase consistency, from project initiation to completion.