The Top 6 Reasons To Join a Professional Organization

Quick Summary

• Professional organizations like the North Texas Organization for Nursing Leadership (NTONL) offer educational, networking, and personal advantages for Nurse Leaders at any level.

• Professional organizations are committed to providing members with up-to-date continuing education and training. NTONL conducts an annual internal needs assessment to help tailor programming to the needs of its members.

• NTONL has developed three distinct committees — Education, Communication, and Membership — to allow Nurse Leaders to get involved with the organization and give back to their communities.

Today, Nurse Leaders are busier and more in demand than ever before. As Nurse Leaders juggle professional responsibilities and commitments, it might seem overwhelming or untenable to add professional organization membership into the mix.

The truth, however, is that professional organizations like the North Texas Organization for Nursing Leadership (NTONL) provide a number of advantages for Nurse Leaders in every stage of their careers.

Within a rapidly changing environment, NTONL is a forum for Nurse Leaders to promote compassionate, effective, and efficient healthcare, emphasizing nursing’s role in patient care.

Keep reading to learn more about six key benefits of professional organizations for Nurse Leaders.

1. Continuing Education

One of the primary functions of professional organizations is professional development. Nurse Leaders can strengthen their skills with educational programs that explore current issues relevant to nursing administration and healthcare providers. The healthcare environment is continually changing and evolving, and participating in a professional organization is one way Nurse Leaders can ensure that they stay up-to-date with skills and technology.

NTONL conducts an annual internal needs assessment of Nurse Leaders, which allows the organization to cater its educational offerings to its audience’s needs. For example, the 2023 NTONL seminar was focused on engaging, energizing, and empowering a diverse multigenerational workforce.

2. Community-Specific Support

Getting involved in a regional professional organization is a great way for Nurse Leaders to meet colleagues in their areas. This is indispensable for networking, especially with other healthcare providers in various stages of their careers.

Additionally, professional organizations like NTONL allow Nurse Leaders to collaborate when issues or questions arise. Being able to pick up a phone and ask for help, feedback or ideas is invaluable.

3. Diverse Perspectives

Professional organizations bring together a unique and varied cross-section of nursing personnel to share ideas, information, and support.

NTONL members serve in many different roles and various healthcare settings. The organization’s membership includes professionals at every career stage, so several generations of Nurse Leaders can learn from one another and share their experiences.

The NTONL is committed to supporting Nurse Leaders in the earliest stages of their professional lives. Programs that welcome early-career members not only support the development of rising healthcare personnel, they also help established Nurse Leaders and managers to understand their colleagues more and to better meet their needs.

4. Space to Workshop and Troubleshoot

Professional organizations are designed to foster the interchange of new knowledge and innovation in an accepting and supportive environment. The goal is to offer a forum for Nurse Leaders to speak to issues relevant to nursing and share their own experiences.

NTONL allows Nurse Leaders to collaborate specifically with colleagues they rarely interact with in their day-to-day jobs. Ultimately, this liberates healthcare providers, allowing them to speak freely about complex topics. Professional organizations make space for open dialogue that may otherwise be difficult to achieve.

5. Opportunities To Give Back

Participating in a professional organization is also a meaningful way to give back to one’s nursing community and to support tomorrow’s leaders.

NTONL has developed three distinct committees — Education, Communication, and Membership — to empower Nurse Leaders to shape the future of their field.

Education Committee: This group plans and executes bimonthly education offerings as well as the annual Fall Forum. The Education Committee also collaborates with the NTONL board to ensure programming meets members’ educational and professional development needs.

Communication Committee: The purpose of this committee is to leverage social media to drive engagement within NTONL. The Communication Committee is designed to increase the visibility of Nurse Leaders internally and externally in the broader community. It also is a way to communicate to the current membership about upcoming events, meetings, and networking opportunities.

Membership Committee: This group is charged with recruiting up-and-coming Nurse Leaders to join NTONL, retain members, and contribute to the organization. The Membership Committee’s goals include supporting chapter activities and networking events to encourage NTONL’s growth, and to encourage Nurse Leaders’ engagement across each chapter.

Nurse Leaders at any career stage are encouraged to get involved with NTONL’s Education, Communication, and Membership committees.

6. Fellowship

Finally, professional organizations allow Nurse Leaders to connect on a personal level. The field of nursing is demanding, and healthcare providers inevitably experience significant ups and downs in the course of their work. NTONL offers a ready-made environment in which Nurse Leaders can celebrate their successes, commiserate with each other, and support one another during difficult times.

Sometimes, simply speaking with someone who truly understands the challenges of nursing can make all the difference.

Final Thoughts

As Nurse Leaders continue to manage myriad responsibilities in a high-pressure workforce, joining a professional organization may initially seem like an additional burden. But often, organizations like NTONL make nursing even more rewarding because they help Nurse Leaders stay up-to-date educationally, get the support they need, and give back to their professions.

A simple way to get started is to check out upcoming events through NTONL’s website and Facebook page.

NTONL is open to emerging and established Nurse Leaders. Its programs are an ideal way to get education and support nurses to grow, learn, and have fun!

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Dr. Donna Montgomery is the Chief Clinical Informatics Officer for Lone Star Communications. Donna has spent over 35+ years as a healthcare leader in various roles from nursing management, IS management, product line development, process improvement, informatics, and executive leadership.

Cloud-Powered Healthcare: Embracing Innovation and Security

Quick Summary

• Despite cloud computing being close to two decades old, some IT stakeholders are still nervous about implementing cloud-based solutions — especially for apps and services for sensitive data-driven health delivery organizations (HDOs).

• Because of well-publicized and large-scale cyberattacks against major organizations across the globe, HDOs’ guards are up and they’re scrutinizing any applications, medical devices, and mobile communication tools that aren’t completely under the control of enterprise IT.

• Cloud computing isn’t a boogeyman to be afraid of: HDOs and solutions providers should work together to leverage cloud capabilities for numerous business advantages. HDOs can now confidently evaluate solution providers, manage the acceptance process of new vendors, and securely manage the compliant solutions themselves.

Ransomware attacks on major organizations are a thorn in the side of every IT stakeholder in businesses of all sizes. Mainstream cloud computing is almost 20 years old, but despite not being the cause of cyberattacks, wide-scale migration away from solely on-premises, or on-prem, infrastructure is still enough to shake the confidence of IT stakeholders deploying newer solutions.

Most health delivery organizations (HDOs) have at least some investment in and operational dependence on the cloud, but wider reliance on cloud-based solutions still creates tension. Even if cloud computing often has nothing to do with hackers hijacking devices — including medical tools and equipment — the idea of being more connected to systems outside the complete control of enterprise IT stirs up nervous reactions.

But cloud computing is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, businesses disadvantage themselves when they leave additional cloud adoption on the table. Embracing cloud solutions combined with solid security postures can help safely and securely provide applications and services to HDOs. Given complex health IT infrastructure and shrinking resources for new rollouts and application management, the cloud is a godsend in terms of scaling, deployment speed, ease of maintenance, and total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits.

The Cloud Evolution: Can It Handle Health?

With almost two decades in the public eye, cloud computing has already become a mainstay in how organizations do business. But whether companies’ infrastructure are primarily on-prem or in the cloud doesn’t always come down to cost. “Cloud has the convenience factor going for it,” BlueSteel Cybersecurity CEO Ali Allage says. “It’s not meant to be a cost-effective solution; it’s just meant to be a scalable solution.

An organization’s cybersecurity posture isn’t defined by location so much as its capabilities, resources and use cases. “Most everything is going into cloud, and a lot of frameworks are adjusting and adapting to it,” Ali explains. But cloud security doesn’t make you more secure on-prem — with a hybrid solution composed of both, there’s just more environment, access control and open ports to lock down.

Eric Thorsen, CEO of ThorTech Solutions, agrees. When Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced its Amazon S3™ back in 2006, it set the groundwork for the cloud competition we see today between AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Oracle. “It enabled businesses to compete,” Eric explains. “But if you’re not there now, it’s hard to keep up with your competitors because of the pace of innovation.”

The question — amid all this innovation — is whether these cloud companies are compliant and secure for the industries they serve, from fintech to healthcare. “AWS spent $8 billion on cybersecurity alone in 2021,” Eric highlights. On-prem companies will have trouble competing with these cloud titans. But regardless of whether organizations are on-prem or in the cloud, they need the same controls, staff, expertise, and processes for managing security effectively.

Big electronic health record (EHR) players like Cerner and Epic are at the forefront of cloud computing solutions. “Once you learn how to lock down a system in a certain way on a platform and the different features it has, you can now apply that to many other kinds of businesses,” Eric explains. “So I absolutely think that they are up to the task. … It’s just a matter of time before everybody is going to wind up being there.”

Service Providers Need to Educate Customers on Cloud

Few are in as unique a position as Jeff Richard, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Lone Star Communications, who has experienced HDO IT and operations from both customer and provider standpoints. As far back as 2013, Jeff was part of the leadership team at Texas not-for-profit health system Baylor Scott & White working on a project that required storing terabytes of data. Cheap cloud storage was the easy answer.

“We weren’t looking at the cybersecurity of what is tied to patients’ medical records,” Jeff says. Cyberattacks weren’t as prevalent. “There weren’t as many bad actors in the market.” But with the aforementioned rise of Epic and Cerner and their adoption of cloud technology, as well as the ubiquity of more cloud-based, user-focused applications across the healthcare industry, protected health information (PHI) has quickly become a top priority.

What Jeff learned from a customer standpoint is the need for service providers to educate and reassure customers that their decisions about their own solutions will be respected. But at the same time, it’s important to reinforce the implications of cybersecurity concerns. “Just because it’s in the cloud doesn’t mean it’s any more or less secure: It’s about the organization’s posture as a company, and abiding by the policies that they have in place,” he says.

It’s important that providers engage customers with up-to-date information and open and honest conversations about the handling of information. Additionally, “Lone Star is trying to get ahead of the integration power curve,” Jeff highlights. Risk and security assessment requests for simple procedures like renewing service contracts are on the rise. “We’re making huge efforts to improve our security posture (i.e. cybersecurity readiness) and be able to speak and demonstrate intelligently to our customers about what that posture looks like,” he says.

Getting the Value Proposition of PHI Right

PHI can make solution providers very nervous. However, failing to take advantage of what PHI offers is doing a disservice to customers and providers themselves. The decade-old world of error-prone, disparate systems and interfaces relying on manual patient data population is on its way out.

Tackling the problem from a business liability (rather than a cybersecurity) perspective might help. “It comes down to the value proposition on the data,” Ali explains. “If the data proves to be something that would greatly enhance the product — and the solution, risk, and liability of holding that data makes it worthwhile — it’s worth investigating.”

Privacy, confidentiality, compliance, and security concerns all play a part. “It is a journey of introducing better practices in terms of holding, encrypting, and ensuring that whenever data leaves, it’s encrypted in transit,” Ali says. With a SaaS platform application, even more questions bubble up. “How does the software handle the data? How does it interact with the systems behind that?”

Operating in the healthcare space amplifies these concerns. “When you’re touching that sort of information, you’re looking to produce an outcome that could potentially save lives,” Ali emphasizes. “It’s more of a greater insight [with] greater detail. Leave no stone unturned.”

Eric concurs and explains that customer reassurance on PHI has to be tangible — even amid indelible sales process friction. “Make sure there really is a value prop, because you’re going to be introducing not only the overhead of business liability but [also] the overhead of making sure you can prove to customers that you can be trusted with their data,” he says.

“Which risk are you willing to take and what is the benefit that you’re looking for?” Jeff asks. “If we’re really talking about saving lives, the ability to transmit data in a way that gives visibility to emergency departments [and] trauma teams increases the likelihood of high-quality outcomes for patients.”

Making the Process Better for Customers and HDOs

No provider is a stranger to customer due diligence — for both traditional in-person services and application-based services. But it doesn’t need to be painful for either party.

“We’re in a time where security is a concern,” Ali says. Because of this, “you see misguided, misdirected efforts in the form of questionnaires, with four or five compliance [frameworks] being regurgitated on a piece of paper.” Eric explains that these come from the desire of compliance officers to “eliminate the fear factor when building a solution.”

What both Ali and Eric are in agreement with is the need for conversations between customers and HDOs about why certain questions are important. When it comes to questions of liability and data loss prevention, Ali says it’s important to “collaborate on a direction that ultimately yields the best results for both sides.”

“A lot of it is education with the customer,” Jeff adds. “It needs to be a dialogue for both sides.”

Final Thoughts

Normalizing cloud adoption is a critical part of ensuring that dialogue between customers and providers takes place — and that HDOs are fully embracing the inevitable tide of technological transformation.

Working together to discard inaccurate biases around innovation is key to this transformation, and much “the innovation [itself] is also making [digital transformation] easier,” says Eric.

Such advancements likewise make it simpler to demonstrate tight security to customers and give them more reassurance — cheaper than before. Demonstrable value props are “no-brainers” and are “easier to engage,” Ali adds.

“Things are changing fast,” Jeff says. “Just keep educating.” Cloud solutions and adoption are going nowhere. The quicker HDOs who are educated about cloud’s benefits can embrace what it can do for them, the better everyone will be doing.

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Kenny Schiff, a healthcare industry veteran, is the Founder of CareSight, a powerful alarm analytics-as-a-service company that delivers the information required to help hospitals manage their alarm, alert, and notification environments. In October 2022, CareSight was acquired by Lone Star and now operates as a majority-owned division of Lone Star Communications Companies.

Lone Star Embraces Low Code/No Code: Here’s Why You Should Too

Quick Summary

• The future of application development is low code/no code. A Lone Star Communications programmer and citizen developer teamed up to build an app for technicians that didn’t require conventional coding backgrounds in native languages like Python which are traditionally used for building apps.

• The dangers and potential business risks of citizen developers could soon be a thing of the past: With businesses solving customers’ problems using less technologically-demanding routes, businesses are opening themselves up to even more future possibilities.

• Lone Star Communications is not just a systems integration company working behind the scenes for the healthcare industry — it interacts enthusiastically with customers about using available tools to do more for them.

The ‘low code/no code’ gospel isn’t high on the agenda for most traditional programmers. But soon it might have to be: Talented employees are creating solutions to solve real customer problems and address user needs. And these fully-functioning tools are getting built faster than anyone could’ve predicted.

Lone Star Communications Technology Integration Specialist Brian Banks and Healthcare Innovations Specialist Cliff Switzer were tasked by their employer with evaluating potential industry disruptions. What they soon found was that benefits of low code/no code solutions outweighed the usual risks associated with citizen developers.

Division of Disruption: An R&D Origin Story

Starting in a customer service role over 17 years ago, Brian quickly worked his way into research and development (R&D). Meanwhile, industry veteran Cliff Switzer served as a key part of growth of Halco Life Safety Systems — and its 65% market share — before Lone Star Communications acquired the company in 2015.

Brian and Cliff were soon asked to join a then-unnamed innovation group, with the aim of looking at disruptions in the healthcare technology industry. “They handpicked the guys that think outside the box,” Cliff explains. Prior to the founding of the group, Brian and Cliff had never actually met — despite having worked in the same company for a number of years.

Whereas Brian was engineering in the Dallas area, Cliff’s role, based in Houston, was customer-facing. “I talk to hospitals and figure out what technology they're purchasing in order to integrate it into our systems,” Cliff says. “Every day is a different day, and it's pretty awesome to see this stuff go live in these facilities.”

But the R&D group wasn’t just about looking for potential disruptions that might cause issues for the industry. It was also born with a view to deliberately disrupt the industry in a positive way by looking for potential catalysts. “One of the first things we landed on was empowering our own team from within [to] be the disruption,” Brian explains.

They soon settled on a name: DoD — Division of Disruption. As a proudly self-proclaimed disrupter, Brian knew that empowering technicians with knowledge was an angle they needed to explore. With this in mind, they hit upon the idea of a knowledge base library.

Low Code/No Code Is the Solution

A library needs an environment to run: What would that look like? Cliff suggested that the DoD consider a no code environment to implement their vision. Coming from a background of developing apps and websites with products like Xcode and Swift, Brian was initially skeptical. How could a no code solution feasibly factor into the library’s production, and what kind of timeline would the team need to develop the final product?

Cliff stumbled upon his low code/no code solution while using data analytics in customer-facing situations: “There's got to be a way [to] build modern apps without Swift [and] React,” he explains. The prospect of being able to prototype products and services to benefit from quicker customer feedback — instead of spending time and money developing an app — was especially attractive.

Having tried no code development platforms like Adalo, Bubble, and FlutterFlow, Cliff ultimately went with a different company: Glide. With Brian working in app development using WordPress and other tools “it was a perfect match,” Cliff says.

Rising Stars in Healthcare Technology

Once Cliff showed Brian what could be done in a no-code environment in just one week, the duo built a prototype ahead of their next DoD meeting. The DoD reaction was overwhelmingly positive. The prototype would ultimately become TechStar.

Functioning as the internal knowledge base for technicians, TechStar has taken on a life of its own. Once Cliff and Brian got past their proof of concept, they discovered there was significant demand for the tool.

For the final build, Brian and Cliff took concepts from a previous knowledge base library they’d created and made it forward-facing and thus technician-friendly. Technicians require entire parts catalogs, installation manuals and wiring diagrams. With TechStar, technicians are able to get what they need from an app rather than having to log into a website, making onboarding new technicians much easier.

From this initial use case and with increased centralization, the R&D team realized they could also share contact lists and site information within the app, precluding the need for phone directories. The app’s growth and development quickly snowballed.

No More Citizen Developer Risk

Brian’s role is more conventionally IT-focused, while Cliff occupies the ‘citizen developer’ category. One oft-touted concern with employing citizen developers for technological solutions is that they can introduce more business risk and actually potentially harm businesses in the process. But this concern may very soon be unwarranted.

“Moving forward, I really think [citizen development] is something that a lot of people may find benefit in,” Brian explains. It could help identify core needs, especially when citizen developers are working in customer-facing roles. “What are you really trying to create? What problem are you really trying to solve?”

Considering the amount of time people spend on their cell phones, providing interaction and information in the form of a mobile app is always a plus point for both businesses and customers. Doing this without large development teams armed with conventional coding backgrounds in native languages like Python is surely an all-around win.

The low code/no code environment was “a great meeting ground for two talents that addressed a need quickly,” Brian says. He was impressed by how well they could achieve this on a short timeline. With “both of us having technician backgrounds, we knew almost upfront what the needs were. When we started developing this, we designed it specific to those needs.” This was in spite of the fact that Cliff had a full-time job on top of his work for TechStar.

Endless Possibilities — For Businesses and for Customers

Once technicians and other people in the business see what can be achieved, their own creativity is stimulated for what else might be possible.

Kenny Schiff, founder and CEO of CareSight.com as well as Lone Star Communications’ Director of Analytics, was working on a prototype for a mobile application and ended up reusing some of Brian and Cliff’s processes to get feedback from his sales and marketing teams, customers and partners.

“Who better to build for than the person that's consuming the actual app?” Cliff highlights. Clinicians can give accurate feedback on what they want. “You're building to a need rather than building to what you think the need is. You're closer to the problem.”

Companies like Lone Star are in the problem-solving business. It might not be common to view healthcare technology organizations as product-based — with different customers having different problems — but these companies are significantly closer to customers than manufacturing companies are. Being able to listen to and take action on direct feedback puts solving problems squarely in the control of those with an interest in solving them, rather than being reliant on other parties to solve parts of those problems.

Prepare Yourself: There’s a lot of AI Coming to Healthcare

With the rise in the use of tools like ChatGPT, the effects of AI and machine learning (ML) development are rippling through every industry — healthcare included.

Brian is most excited about the potential for future integrations amid rapidly developing new environments. “TechStar was designed to give the technician the ability to look at a PDF, drawing or information quickly,” he says. With AI integrations, asking your phone a question will return the answer even more quickly.

“When you're standing in front of an engineer or contractor at a site, [the] customer relationship is totally different,” he explains. Businesses are now charged with the confidence to provide a rapid response to whatever customers require. Cliff also explains that it’s only trained on data for which TechStar is programmed. “That unlocks a lot of creative doors,” he says.

Cliff also highlights the fast pace of AI development. “There [are] all these AI tools that literally build whatever it is that you want,” he notes. “The trick is creativity — and figuring out how to create a brand around it.”

Learning Is a Lifelong Process: Lone Star Embodies It

The dividing line between real programming and citizen programming may no longer matter. “The tools are there — you just have to be a lifelong learner,” Cliff says. “That's me and Brian: After four o'clock, we're learning, looking at new tech [and] trying to figure out how to plug things in. And that's what we do — weekends [and] nights [too].”

Not all companies offer their people the opportunity to create tools and systems that may have outsized benefits to customers, employees and perhaps even further afield. But while the Division of Disruption might spark negative connotations, viewing it as a department of challenge — without barriers — changes the way of thinking about the possibilities.

Lone Star Communications isn’t just about systems integration working behind the scenes within the healthcare industry. Top talent like the DoD facilitates direct, fruitful interactions with customers and solves more problems quicker than anyone may have thought possible.

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Brian Banks is a Technology Integration Specialist at Lone Star Communications and has worked with the company for over 16 years. Cliff Switzer is a Healthcare Innovations Specialist. Prior to his seven year tenure at Lone Star, Cliff worked for more than 20 years at Halco Life Safety Systems, which was acquired by Lone Star Communications in 2015.