quately fulfill your facility's needs. And if you do have to go back and
add monitors or adjust your contract after the initial install, you'll lose
out on the percentage discounts you get for big-ticket hardware pur-
chases.
"Of course, you want to look at cost savings during the vendor
selection," says Brenda Kendall, MS, BSN, RN, CNOR, associate exec-
utive director of clinical operations for The Ohio State University's
James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute in Columbus.
"But when it comes to integration, one size doesn't fit all. You have to
stay true to the mission and goal of your organization, and really ana-
lyze what the true cost will be."
Regardless of the level of integration your facility has planned, serv-
ice is one of several crucial factors in any sound decision-making
process.
"You can expect to get a great level of integration technology from
all the major vendors out there, but you can't always expect to get the
same level of service," says Ms. Kendall.
Dual perspective
Too often the OR integration process is viewed only through the lens
of business and administration. And that's a big mistake.
"You need both the clinical and the non-clinical perspective in order
for it to work," says Ms. Kendall. "It's been a long time since I've
worked in the operating room, so I need folks with real clinical
expertise to let me know the features that are likely to cause issues or
the components our ORs absolutely must have."
To ensure her facility got the dual perspective it needed, Ms. Kendall
relied on clinical champions. "We had 2 surgeon champions as well as
a nurse and a surgical tech," says Ms. Kendall. The benefit of surgeon
champions is as much about efficiency as it is buy-in. After all, when
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