Contract Guardian To Attend HCCA Mid Central Regional Compliance Conference in Louisiville

Contract Guardian Plans Exhibition in Louisville, KY

Contract Guardian, a leading solution for managing company contracts, commitments, and compliance announced that its plans to attend the HCCA Mid Central Regional Conference in Louisville, KY on November 7, 2014.  The event will be held at the Marriott Louisville East on 11/7/2014.

Topics being covered during this regional conference include: Top 10 Security Concerns for Healthcare IT, Federal & State Criminal Healthcare Fraud Investigations, Security, The London CIA, OIG Update, Show ME the Money, and Round Table Discussion - Hospital/Privacy & Security/Compliance Hot Topics.

"We are always excited to attend one of the many great HCCA events and meet with regional leaders in the healthcare industry.  I am particularly excited about the focus on IT and Security," said, John Reuter, Director of Implementation Services of Contract Guardian. Read More

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Learn more about Contract Guardian by calling 513.977.4544 or request a demonstration

Non-Profit Acute Care Hospital Goes Live with Contract Guardian

On July 15, 2014

California Based Hospital to Deploy Gold Cloud Edition of Contract Guardian

Cincinnati, OH - July 15, 2014 - Contract Guardian, a leading solution for managing company contracts, commitments, and compliance announced that a leading non-profit acute care hospital in California has gone live with Contract Guardian the 'Intuitive Contract Management' solution, to effectively manage contracts, improve visibility, manage access, and evaluate performance.

The hospital is leveraging Contract Guardian to simplify and update all aspects of healthcare contract management and compliance within their organization. The hospital will utilize the Cloud Based version of Contract Guardian over the web, thus requiring no capital expenditure. All aspects of a hospital's contract management lifecycle, including contract creation, monitoring of key milestones, and compliance can be managed via a computer or any popular mobile device. Contract Guardian offers Contract Data Conversion as part of the overall service offering for organizations migrating from their existing solution. Read More

ProspectStream Sales Process Management Software Goes Live with Contract Guardian

CINCINNATI, Ohio (July 2, 2014) - Rippe & Kingston Systems, Inc. a diversified information technology services firm, just announced that Ohio based ProspectStream, a Cloud Based Sales Process Management Software Firm, has gone live with Contract Guardian “Intuitive Contract Management”,  to effectively manage contracts, improve visibility, manage access, and evaluate performance.

ProspectStream is leveraging Contract Guardian to simplify and update all aspects of healthcare contract management and compliance within the firm.   In addition, they are utilizing Contract Guardian APIs to connect with their product.  ProspectStream will deploy the Gold Edition of Contract Guardian over the web, thus requiring no capital expenditure.  All aspects of a firm’s contract management lifecycle, including contract creation, monitoring of key milestones, and compliance can be managed via a computer or any popular mobile device.  “We’re extremely excited about what we have already seen in Contract Guardian and thrilled that they can easily integrate with our software” says Steve Farfsing, President of ProspectStream, LLC.

About ProspectStream

ProspectStream is a Sales Process Management Software firm that has been in business since 2008.  They developed a purpose built prospecting tool in the form of sales automation software.  In other words they apply a systematic approach to qualifying new opportunities while increasing the effectiveness of sales initiatives in every way. They are known for their systematic approach of putting the science in sales.  Their cloud based offering leverages best practices and with their breakthrough technology they:

• Organize and optimize the sales process
• Prompt your next move
• Track your success.

To learn more, visit www.prospectstream.com 

Read Complete Press Release

Learn more about Contract Guardian by calling 513.977.4544 or request a demonstration.

Healthcare Contract Management and the Impact of Hospital Mergers

Mergers in Healthcare are becoming very common.  Healthcare consolidation has been on the rise lately with little sign of slowing down. The industry's merger and acquisition activity increased by almost 20 percent in the third quarter of 2013 compared with the same quarter a year ago, with 267 deals announced in the past three months, according to Irving Levin Associates. (Source: Becker’s Hospital Review)

While a merger can make great financial sense, it often results in a loss of institutional memory that walks away with the reduction in staff.  A merger may also result in some promotions of existing contract managers and promote them.  Again, an organization can experience loss of knowledge and expertise.

One way to mitigate pain and loss in the transition is the effective use of a strong healthcare contract management system.   Our experience tells us that having the following components will make the transition rewarding and retention of the hospital contract management knowledge successful:

• Well defined healthcare contract management contract types.  Each type should clearly specify the unique data to be captured, what is required, optional and default values.
• Strong journal of all transactions and the history of any change, comment and notification regarding an agreement.
• Defined alert system as well as a work flow and signing approval  for each contract type.
• Ability to transfer “in mass” responsibility of a group of contracts from one person to another.  (Note:  one should perform a check on all alerts to identify any email addresses that are no longer valid due to reduction/change in staff or change to email addresses)
• Reporting system to review, report and identify any potential concerns.
• If you have a hosted contract management system (sometimes called SaaS or Cloud), you will eliminate one of the many challenges that the IT team often faces.

You will still experience pain with almost any merger or acquisition.  However, having the above in place for your contract management system will minimize the loss and ease the transition.

Learn more about Contract Guardian by calling 513.977.4544 or request a demo

Related articles

• Why Medical Practice Mergers Fail (or Fail to Get Off the Ground)
• $3.8B Beaumont, Botsford, Oakwood merger a done deal following hospital boards' approval

How Do You Manage Your Business Agreements

If you're like many companies, you keep a growing list of hard copies and electronic files plus a nifty spreadsheet to track key dates and details. Yet it can still take hours, even days, to track down the data you need when you need it.

Not having an effective system to manage your contracts is almost as bad as not having a contract! Organizations have invested significant time and money to reach the point of a signed contract. Unfortunately, it is incorrectly believed that this is the last time anyone needs to look at the agreement.

Explore how a Contract Management System Addresses your Needs.  Read Complete Article by Thom Davidson

How to Preserve Institutional Knowledge with Contract Management Software

I read a blog posting with the title “How to Preserve Institutional Knowledge” by Ron Askenas.  He has some excellent points that are definitely worth sharing.

• The core knowledge of an institution often leaves when individuals are promoted, transferred or depart
• Knowledge disappears even more rapidly when a firm reorganizes or merges with another (We have seen this occur with our healthcare contract management clients)

He suggests that there are a couple of ways to overcome loss of institutional knowledge:

• First, build an explicit strategy for maintaining institutional memory, even in your own team. Don’t assume that it will happen by itself.
• Second, as part of your strategy, identify the few key things that you want every member of your team to know or be able to do — and figure out how to turn this from an implicit assumption to an explicit expectation.
• Finally, use technology to create a process by which your team continually captures and curates institutional knowledge

I had a little epiphany when I realized Contract Guardian Contract Management delivers the capability for capturing the Institutional Knowledge of any organization.  As a result I have written some examples of how to leverage Contract Guardian to satisfy this pressing need.  Read Complete Article.

Learn more about Contract Guardian by calling 513.977.4544 or request a demo

Press Release | June 2014 - Contract Guardian Releases Enterprise Search API

New Contract Guardian Search API

Contract Guardian can be integrated with almost any existing system to further extend the power and level of unification of various systems.  "The API is easy to use and yet powerful!" - Thom Davidson

The search API can be initiated with or without predefined parameters.  Typically, clients will have an icon that will initiate the search.  It will open a new window and execute the full text search.  The search addresses all security concerns and constraints associated with the client / user.

Read Complete Release

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Learn more about Contract Guardian by calling 513.977.4544 or request a demonstration.