It’s easy to get excited about bells and whistles, inflated promises, and new programs or tools that promise the world.
We’ve been through a lot this past year. When you’ve changed everything, implemented new technology in weeks instead of months, it’s easy to jump at the latest and greatest things. You have to - your business depends on it.
But what’s the risk?
What are you missing?
Will it come back to haunt you?
Defining your competitive advantage
Business experts define competitive advantage as an attribute that allows an entity to outperform its competition. It’s what makes an organization's products or services better than everything else on the market. It’s why customers buy.
In the medical field, you earn that through knowledge, experience, and, ultimately, referrals. If other practitioners or organizations in your area or field recommend you as “the best,” people will trust you.
Would you be willing to give all of that up simply by bringing the latest IoT gadget into your practice? No?
Yet people do it all the time.
Recalls on medical devices
The Recall Index 2020 Edition 2 put out by Stericycle released at the end of 2020 stated that medical device recall activity exceeded 300 recalls for the first time since the second quarter of 2018. Over 14 percent of them were due to safety issues.
There are many reasons for this: device complexity and failed device testing being just a few. But now more than ever, companies are feeling the pressure of getting things to market in order to be the leader in their fields. With everyone pushing for AI and virtual technology to improve the healthcare industry, companies assume that if you have a new idea, the faster to market, the better.
Or is it?
Maybe the right thing to do is slow down
When we choose to slow down even a little, we ask better questions. It allows us to bring to light important questions like:
- How will this impact my business? How will it play with the rest of the tools built into my infrastructure? What looks good in a demo may present serious difficulties when marrying it up with other tools and resources you rely on every day.
- How is security built in and around this application, especially as we upgrade to things like 5G? You can tell a lot about a company if they aren’t paying attention to their own growth models and how they will integrate with future technologies.
- What kind of testing should I do to ensure this is secure? Testing is no longer a once-in-a-while activity. It’s on-going, ever-present. Can you test how a new resource interacts with your practice before you implement? How will you build it into your current systems? If you can’t figure it out before you buy the technology, you might be forced to after implementation. And the costs will skyrocket exponentially.
Being the fastest might not be a recognizable trait in the near future. Instead, it will fall to those leaders who do the best job adapting to their environment, and making the wisest choices given their circumstances.
Will that be you?
For IT Strategy, Cloud Conversion, or Help Desk Services reach out to us at Silver Linings Technology 360-450-4759.
