The Challenge
Effective digital adoption for busy professionals
Christus Health is a faith-based Catholic healthcare company with about 45,000 associates, including 15,000 physicians, in the US and internationally. With such a diverse workforce, communication and consistent process training is a constant challenge.
“In some cases, our workforce is almost unreachable,” says Tobias Washington, Director, Learning Experience, Design and Technology, for Christus Health. “Our nurses are busy taking care of patients. They use 15-plus applications to do their jobs, but they don’t have time to stop and be trained. We really need to train them in the flow of work, as close to when they’re performing their jobs as possible.”
As Washington points out, adopting new technology is not just about efficiency in his sector. “Process completion in healthcare is life or death,” he says. “If our people don’t know how to use the applications properly, that could mean a negative outcome for our patients.”
Process completion is also crucial to the billing team. Washington says too many errors were being made on invoices, or by entering incorrect codes into the billing system.
“The more inefficient we are in getting those bills out of our systems to our payers, the less money we get reimbursed as an organization,” he says. “We are a company about helping our patients, but we also need to have the financial means to be able to do that.”
Then came the decision to deploy a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Infor ERP would replace 40+ disparate applications for HR, supply chain, performance, financial management and more.
Washington knew it was time for a new digital adoption solution. “We couldn’t keep doing communication and training the way we always have,” he says. “For the past 13 years, we’ve been just trying to create better job aids and we’ve been trying to create better manuals and better classroom experiences. But they just weren’t having the impact we need.”
The Solution
In-app guidance delivered at the time of need
By delivering real-time, in-app guidance, WalkMe allows busy healthcare professionals to learn while working—and not have to take time out for training.
WalkMe functions as an invisible layer over existing applications and other software, and delivers intuitive and unobtrusive resources including Smart Walk-Thrus (tip balloons) and SmartTips (advanced tooltips) at the time of need. Christus Health implemented WalkMe on Infor ERP, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Concur, and Kronos, with plans to apply the technology to more applications in the future.
Christus also uses WalkMe to identify potential errors as they are being made, of huge benefit to Christus Health and the organization’s bottom line.
“I don’t think that we’ve seen something as unique and as innovative as WalkMe in quite some time,” Washington says. “WalkMe has changed our learning landscape. In the past, we’ve always had to be more reactive in the way we approach learning. Now, we can actually roll out the learning as we roll out new software or updates.”
Fully customizable, brandable solution
Washington also appreciates that WalkMe is fully customizable, which has further increased user engagement. “We white-labeled WalkMe as Noah at Christus Health, and it’s one of my favorite things about working with WalkMe: they gave us the flexibility to make WalkMe unique to Christus,” Washington says.
Christus Health employees can now directly interface with the WalkMe ActionBot, whom they know only as Noah, and recognize as their own personal digital assistant. Using natural language processing, Noah is able to converse with employees, answer questions in real time, and automate processes across applications.
The Results
Faster adoption, fewer errors led to increased revenue
WalkMe has allowed the Christus team to be responsive and adapt quickly to constantly changing technologies. “In the past, it would take us three or four months to create and re-do these job aids,” says Washington. “But now when we implement a new process or a system update, we’re able to quickly turn that around in a matter of a couple of days.”
In addition to saving time, WalkMe has also boosted revenue. “We recently deployed WalkMe on one of our ERP systems,” says Washington. “And it has helped us ensure that our billing folks put the appropriate codes on our invoices, because if we don’t bill and code correctly, then of course we don’t survive as an organization. ”Looking ahead, Washington plans to implement the WalkMe ActionBot, Noah, to automate even more processes and further improve the intuitive user experience.
“That’s what I feel is next for Christus and WalkMe: providing new experiences where Christus Health employees don’t even have to know what application they need to interact with,” Washington says. “They just know, ‘I need to get something done. I went to Noah and Noah took care of it for me.’ In other words, they went to WalkMe and WalkMe took care of it for them.”