Want More Communication?  Check Out the Intranet

Good morning!

Communication is one of those topics often cited in employee and faculty engagement surveys, as in, “We want more and better communication.”

While I wholeheartedly agree, it’s complex.  Communication about what?  To whom?  Through what medium?  And how much is enough?  When does more communication become overload? 

I’ve had colleagues complain they get too much email and can’t keep up with it all.  Others have said they are too busy to look at email and they’d rather hear about things through their supervisor (even though their boss might not be the world’s best communicator!).

We have all kinds of meetings and specific activities like Leadership Rounds that bolster communication.  I also do regular walk-rounds that take me to every corner of the Medical Center and to off-campus locations.  Nothing can replace face-to-face communication for getting a message across and receiving immediate feedback.  But in this day and age, email, with all its faults, is a necessary tool.   

For important, “business-related” information at UMMC, we use emails branded as “Campus Memos.”  But because everybody gets a lot of email, we try to use these sparingly and limit the subject matter to official business.  A few groups have the ability to send campus-wide emails, but again, we encourage these “blasts” to be used sparingly. 

For all these reasons, a vibrant, always-accessible UMMC Intranet has become an even more important means of informing our community.  And the “new and improved” intranet site launched in October is a powerful new tool to spread the word.

The new intranet is more than just a makeover of the old site.  It’s been completely rebuilt from the ground up with a new content management system that greatly enhances its functionality and appearance.  Every piece of content posted on the intranet has been reviewed, updated or deleted if it’s no longer serving a purpose. 

By comparison, the previous intranet site, which was implemented about seven years ago, had a dated design that was not responsive – that is, it didn’t automatically adapt to the size of the device on which it was displayed.  Information was presented in a severely limited format, and content could not be shared with other UMMC websites.

Most frustrating, perhaps, the content beyond the home page was cluttered with out-of-date information and broken links.

With this next-generation intranet, our web team has transformed the site from an online filing cabinet to a dynamic communications hub.  Importantly, though, it is still very much a work in progress, with tweaks being made frequently to improve its functionality. 

From my own exploration of the new site, I’ve found the following to be true: 

• The quick links grouped at the top of the page are a handy way to get me to the content or applications I regularly use, like Workday. (Good News:  I’m told that in January you will be able to customize the Administration links with your preferred go-to list.)
  
  
• If I’m looking for something and can’t immediately find it, I go to the A-Z Index tab at the top of the page. Every piece of content on the intranet is listed in this index.
  
  
• Alternatively, I can use the search function to find what I’m looking for, whether it’s an employee, a policy or other content. The search function is much improved from the old version.
  
  
• Just below the quick links are timely, featured announcements, including content provided by the Chief Medical Officer’s staff. This is important, because we want our clinical teams to have one-click access to the clinical quality and patient experience scorecard links displayed in this section. (BTW, one of the current announcements pertains to the campus town hall I'll be holding next Tuesday afternoon.)
  
  
• The coming events, announcements, full calendar and other items in the next sections are better organized to help you find what you’re most interested in. In particular, the calendar function is a great tool that allows you to see everything going on (in month, week or list view) and to filter the information by interest area. 
  
  
• Toward the bottom of the page, I especially like how we’ve featured employee profiles in the “People of the U” section, brought more attention to our awards and recognition activities, and highlighted ways you can provide feedback to senior leadership, including through VC Notes.

Two months since go-live, reviews have been positive.  The new intranet was the focus topic in this week’s Leadership Rounds and the comments from frontline clinical staff reflected a high level of engagement and agreement that this new iteration is an improvement on the old site.

Two months of user data bear that out.  While the average number of visitors and visits per user are the same as a year ago, page views are up 17 percent and average time on the site has decreased, suggesting that users are finding what they are looking for more efficiently. 

Some other notable stats:  More than 80 percent of the content is now compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a huge increase from the previous site; more than 20 additional departments and units now have an intranet presence; intranet content contributors have grown from 10 to more than 50; and the content available through the intranet is at least 15 times the amount accessible through the previous intranet – and growing.

There’s one thing people might not be aware of:  Even though the UMMC Intranet is the default home page for Microsoft Explorer on most computer UMMC workstations, you can access the intranet and bookmark it with any device or browser, including your phone.  A network login is required initially, but once you’re logged in, you stay that way until you close the browser.  (You will still have to log in to apps accessible via the intranet, such as Epic; that is an issue we’re working on, I’m told.)

I want to commend the teams from Web Services in DIS and from Communications and Marketing for all the work that went into this new intranet.  It was a big job that is already paying dividends.  The team welcomes your suggestions for improvement, so pass those along to me if you prefer and I’ll get them to the right people.

Communication is often lumped into one catch-all term that doesn’t do justice to the many ways we share the information we want and need to get the job done in the most efficient and satisfying way.  That’s why we have to keep working to make it better and better, as we continue our journey toward A Healthier Mississippi.