ROI for full EDI? Hmmm…

Less is more, but more is better, right?

No, that isn’t a back-handed reference to President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package some may dub "worst aid." It’s a tip of the fedora to any "compelling arguments for converting to full electronic data interchange," a simple, but thought-provoking comment submitted by a New York-based supply chain manager in response to a February story.

Anyone wanting to sell you software will come up with myriad reasons, many of which will be self-serving. Just not your self. Anyone wanting to sell you software as a solution to your own challenges and needs will know better. Hopefully. You’d most likely have to sift through the marketing and sales pitches like an archeologist before settling on the disclaimer that full conversion may not be feasibly and reasonably cost effective for everyone.

Constructing a case calls for some creativity and not a cookie-cutter approach. In an idyllic world where and when everyone’s either wired or wireless with fluid, open and seamless communications between man and machine, as well as machine-to-machine, there would be no escaping it. Evasion might be furtive but definitely futile. And ignorant.

Trolling for software shouldn’t be a seduction of the innocent or the ill-informed or a clever exercise in sophistry.

In all honesty and plausibility, the easy answer to the question about compelling arguments for full EDI is "it depends." Yet try not to think of it as a convenient loophole or an excuse for plausible deniability.

It depends on how you define ROI. Sharpening your focus to the obvious revenue-and-profit outcomes may only result in fiscal and operational narrow mindedness. However, if full EDI motivates you to channel your inner Indiana Jones or Gil Grissom, helping you unearth mistakes and problems you didn’t realize you were harboring, you’ll likely generate those revenues and profits in the long run.

It also depends on whether you’re seeking hard-dollar or soft-dollar savings – or both. Hard dollars show up on the balance sheet on the top and/or bottom lines. Soft dollars involve freeing up workers to do something else more productive – something that might not be measured quantitatively perhaps, but qualitatively. They include those consultative "leadership" tasks that promote supply chain management’s brand throughout the organization.

On February 20, President Barack Obama offered a three-point business plan during a meeting with roughly 70 mayors from around the nation about using the people’s money for his mammoth economic stimulus plan – to spend it on "its intended purposes without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud."

All three noble causes should justify at least a partial conversion to EDI. But that argument, no matter how charismatically, idealistically or influentially orated, is hardly news. It can be traced back to the 1970s, if not 1980s.

Better yet is a fundamental tenet shared by Obama and his designated-at-press-time Secretary of Health and Human Services, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius "that we can’t fix the economy without fixing healthcare."

So what are some compelling arguments for full conversion to EDI? It’s a great question to have in your quiver as you traverse the exhibit floor of the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference this month in Chicago and in late July during the Association for Healthcare Resource and Materials Management conference in Tampa. Be sure to use Healthcare Purchasing News’ Supply Chain IT Guide this month for a prospect list that can help with your due diligence as you seek to do diligence.