Collective Healthcare Solutions (CollectiveHCS), a Louisiana-based healthcare technology firm, had discovered a unique opportunity to serve its local community: by helping rural health clinics operate more effectively.

CollectiveHCS, run by Alec Jeansonne, specializes in healthcare management—helping clinics maintain compliance expectations to stay in good standing with insurance companies.

“In the early days of working with rural healthcare providers, I would carry a key chain with 10 different thumb drives. Eventually, I found Office 365 and SharePoint to manage documents and data,” Alec said. “Although these Microsoft platforms made substantial process improvements, as our company grew to manage and maintain more clinics, we started hitting some walls.”

After noticing the integral work CollectiveHCS was doing in their community, it wasn’t long before the Louisiana Department of Health reached out to Alec Jeansonne and offered a sizable grant to work together on a data project.

Alec saw a powerful way to strengthen Louisiana’s healthcare system with the data his team at CollectiveHCS received from clinics. But, to give the Department of Health the population health data they wanted and effectively measure the impact of statewide health initiatives, SharePoint wasn’t enough.

Alec realized his team needed the capabilities of Power BI. But diving into this new tool was a lot more challenging than Alec and his team expected. And soon, CollectiveHCS had a data crisis on their hands.

CollectiveHCS saw an opportunity to partner with a specialized boutique consulting firm—Power BI experts who would help Alec’s team rapidly improve their healthcare management and data analytics services, deliver on their promise to the Louisiana Department of Health, and help protect their organization’s reputation.

With Their Reputation on the Line, Speed Became Imperative

Despite their lack of experience with Power BI, Alec’s team at CollectiveHCS was committed to learning Power BI and delivering on their promise to the Department of Health. While the team knew how to run reports, the data was frequently inaccurate and inconsistent.

“I was the SharePoint guru,” Alec said. “I can build portals and do all of these amazing things in SharePoint, but when it came to Power BI…I had no idea.”

Alec hired his own data analyst to process the data in Power BI, while he managed the administrative side of the business. He fully trusted that together they would meet the presentation deadline for the Louisiana Department of Health and exceed their expectations.

Alec was certainly not prepared for his data analyst to miss every meeting, ignore his calls, and ultimately delete all the workspaces and data they spent nearly 18 months developing.

Alec was ready and eager to present the work his data analyst had done to the Department of Health. Even though his client said they couldn’t see the data on their end, he was confident that his data analyst was working on the issues and ready to showcase nearly a year and a half of work.

But, that was not the case and Alec had a major letdown to share with his client, instead of the deliverables he promised. The Louisiana Department of Health was unimpressed with their work and Collective Healthcare Solution’s reputation was on the line. Alec realized he was in over his head with Power BI and he needed help fast.

After convincing the Louisiana Department of Health to extend his deadline two more weeks, Alec started looking for a team that could help him achieve what he knew was possible with Power BI. He found Collectiv’s consultants at just the right time.

“I like progressive companies, and I could see that Collectiv had their hands in a lot of different areas of technical expertise. That’s what we needed: that vast knowledge of all of these different applications rather than just a data analyst,” Alec shared. “Collectiv was the first company I called and they were the first to respond. Their enthusiasm and sense of urgency really sold me.”

Taking Full Advantage of Power BI with All-New Processes

The Collectiv team worked closely with Alec to deliver on his commitment to the Louisiana Department of Health. CollectiveHCS needed to create all-new processes to take full advantage of Power BI’s capabilities.

With a detailed implementation strategy in place, Collectiv pulled together the right experts to work on each part of the project. As a boutique consulting firm, Collectiv had the precise niche experience that Collective Healthcare Solutions needed to quickly develop the right tools and processes to analyze health data without compromising on compliance.

Even with the Department of Health’s deadline extension, it was a tight turnaround. Collectiv chose the perfect consultant to help Alec succeed, a team member with relevant healthcare industry expertise and deep Power BI knowledge.

Even though all of the original data was lost, Collectiv rebuilt the entire project from the ground up in just four days.

While restoring the data, one of Collectiv’s Senior Architects worked with Alec to create a strategy for fulfillment, developing a plan to design a system that achieved the lofty goals Alec had set.

“With something this complex, you want someone to shoot straight and say, ‘We can’t do this until this step is done first.’ Collectiv’s Senior Architect broke everything down in steps for us, knowing this thing needed to be done really fast while still being conscious of our spending,” said Alec.

“Collectiv could have done things my way, which would have cost me a whole lot more. But they didn’t. Instead, they helped me see what we needed to do first.”

Regaining Trust and Confidence within a Month

Within a month, CollectiveHCS was able to present Collectiv’s progress and regain the trust of the Louisiana Department of Health. Alec personally invited Collectiv’s consultants to join calls with their client so the teams could work together even more effectively.

Now, Alec feels more confident working within Power BI and implementing what he’s learned across his organization.

“We’re rural health clinic consultants, so that’s our area of expertise. But, we’re not Power BI experts. Sometimes we just need to get out of our own way and find the people that will help us do the things that we need to do. And that’s exactly what Collectiv did for us.”

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