If your manager expects you to follow a process under which you are accountable, then why should governments, utilities and healthcare service providers tell you of their intended process, but fail (or avoid) keeping you up-to-date as per that process, through some form of Service Lifecycle Management (SLM), for instance? Granted, SLM is usually associated to B2B revenue-generating maintenance activities performed on products that have been sold, but the methods carry over to other domains. Let's see how.

A LinkedIn connection brought my attention to this Public Service Announcement from Duke Energy:

While entertaining, in the sense that the company tells you the sequence of events they intend to do the work, the disconnect appears on the fact the utility customer still does not get a narrow range of time when service will, in fact, be restored:

It might be today, it might be in 1 week. It depends."

In the above instructional video, there's no mention of subscription to notifications, nor feedback loop to the utility. This scenario shows there is a need for SLM at all levels - corporate, regional, institutional and individual.

If there was a way for hospitals and other services citizens regularly use to stay informed on the service being executed, there would be less frustrations and worries. The outcome of such exposed process is it increases the accountability of the provider of the service - involved parties expect tasks to be performed at a given sequence, under certain conditions. So, perhaps there is an actual need for keeping these industries decoupled from their customers? In regards to governments, an article in The Economist (The Electronic Bureaucrat, Feb 14 2008), stated:

(...) services also illustrate some of the big issues about technology and government. First, processing power and good software can make government more user-friendly and sometimes also more efficient, but technology on its own cannot compensate for the mistakes of bureaucrats and politicians. Second, the state has to balance convenience against effectiveness, the outsider's time versus the taxpayer's money and the bureaucrat's effort. Technology may sharpen these problems or ease them, but it cannot eliminate them altogether."

Beyond showcasing technological prowess, there must be a will to actually share internal process information. This can be formulated at aiming to improve customer satisfaction or reduce inefficiencies (or both), by improving accountability and transparency.

Misaligned incentives?

It is well known businesses strive to get customers feedback to ensure customers' money is flowing their way. Using social media provides them one method to capture metrics on what's working, and what needs attention. However, returning to our utility case, the incentives are not the same for these: you're locked in their customer base. It is a similar situation for hospitals, in many countries, as well as government agencies citizens must deal with. Fortunately (!), the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 provided a jolt necessary to get institutions and service utilities to be more accountable.

The topic is a little different for governments, at all levels. As the tax base has dwindled in many regions, it becomes imperative to gather more relevant information with less resources. The answer? Offload the work, for instance to perform automated capture through apps that citizens can use to report issues - such as StreetBump, produced under the New Urban Mechanics project in Boston, or other embedded electronics that report the state of infrastructure, in order to prescribe maintenance rather than fix, in emergency (and, adding insult to injury, at a premium), a failed piece of infrastructure.

 

 

Hospitals (whether in countries where they operate as a for-profit business or as part of a government health care system) should strive to achieve more visibility on their process with some form of SLM, ensuring patients and family are always informed of the next step in the health care process, and reduce inefficiencies. Think how frequently you have been waiting somewhere for hours, idle, without an answer or status of your case, within the hospital's process. As an outcome of not acting in a timely manner, hospitals have missed an opportunity that some countries have now embraced: the rise of medical tourism.

As for an answer upon when a utility service will be reinstated, the ever popular "it depends" becomes a little clearer with the use of EDM and SLM. It is understood fixing a downed power line takes time - it is a function of whether or not repairs are complicated, components such as transformers are available, and if not, the time it takes to get these - but having the ability to keep subscribers informed on a decent estimated time of repair allows these customers to make better use of their time, contributing to GDP rather than sit idle.

Why is this important?

  • SLM provides a better control of the resources deployed for tasks in a variety of industries, increasing customers' visibility and understanding of the progress of the service being executed.
  • While healthcare management inherently includes a lot of variables (patient response, localized practice variations due to external factors, etc), documented and streamlined processes allow for better cost control; patients and their families get a better visibility of outcomes and means deployed to get back to health.
  • In governments, a proper, audit-enabled process helps justify service costs and shows willingness to their constituency to keep tabs on agencies, reducing opportunities of inefficiencies (read: graft, bribe, etc)
  • Because improved accountability helps increase transparency and provides better governance and resource control, lifting GDP figures.

EDM and SLM can support a lot of the issues at hand, but there are some challenges. It is understandable some industries or organizations do not want all the exposure: broadcasting the location of particular service teams opens the possibility they could be swamped by the local population, or raises security threat in some instances - think of emergency response teams being overwhelmed by locals, for instance, hampering the restoration of basic services in a disaster area. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

Stay tuned.

(All views expressed in this blog are my personal views and do not belong to any group/organization I belong to. The blog may contain some data which may not have been verified by me. The blogger is not to be held responsible for any misrepresentation of facts, or data inconsistency. Abbreviations are used to lighten the reading - I don't intend to invent TLAs. Finally, all trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.)