The RockWood Group Helps Organizations Leverage Technology to Drive Business Value

Founded in 2015 by Helen V. Thompson, The RockWood Group, Inc. (RWG) is a privately held service-disabled, veteran-owned, economically-disadvantaged, IT strategy and management consulting firm that focuses on helping organizations leverage technology to drive business value. The company brings to the table seasoned resources and knowledge in all areas of technology solutions and change management.

RWG excels at helping organizations adopt technology faster and drive business value. The company offers direct and honest choices based on real-world experience as business executives. Through an incredible team of skilled technicians, RWG implements a full-range of business management capabilities. The RWG team is highly qualified in installing and configuring a variety of business solutions of any kind; from ERPs to EHRs, Revenue Cycle, Data Analytics, and many other segments. The RWG team members are successful, senior industry professionals that understand and are dedicated to delivering meaningful outcomes.

RWG works in various business settings such as government, military, private and public, electronic medical records, human resources, finance, payroll, purchasing, and more. In a brief interview with us, the company’s founder and CEO, Helen V. Thompson, shared her knowledge of consulting and talked about RWG’s new services, soon to be launched. Read on for the excerpts from the interview.

Q. Is it important to break the myopic view to remain unbiased and stay focused on objectives to devise an effective strategic plan?

When engaging in strategic planning, it is important to approach the future without undue bias towards the past. You must understand the trends within your industry, and those occurring in the markets it interacts with. This allows leaders to see how disruptive tools, breakthroughs, and other seemingly unconnected events can impact their business. This awareness could allow you to have a contingency plan, leverage opportunities, and mitigate challenges appropriately.

Q. Consultants do not come with guarantees, so there is always a possibility that you might not achieve the results you had planned when you hired them, irrespective of the cost. How can businesses overcome this uncertainty?

Realistic and operationally focused measurement plans are critical to success with consultants, or your own associates. We work with our clients to encourage the use of key performance indicators, clear outcome measures, and milestone events as they engage consultants to assist them in strategic and operational planning, program/project execution and evaluating results in order to grow and remain competitive.

Q. Strategic business consulting and planning is the process of creating a set of offensive and defensive business maneuvers designed to increase and keep competitive advantage over your competition. How do you help businesses stay ahead of the curve?

Staying ahead of that curve is extremely challenging for sure. The RWG team is constantly watching the market, attending virtual conferences, and connecting with leaders to hear from them the challenges they face. We also track trends in technology across the spectrum, not just in Healthcare, to look for new potential applications for emerging capabilities. Most business problems are recursive, so looking for opportunities to use technology prescriptively to head off problems, versus simply reacting to the next iteration of a problem, is a core tenet of our business philosophy.

Q. Expertise is the first and biggest advantage of a right business consultant. How do you source the right talents to maintain the quality of your expertise?

RWG uses a series of interviews, reference checks, and evaluations of expertise, experience, and aptitude to ensure a candidates’ fit with the customer and the role. Surprisingly, adaptability is often as critical an element as expertise for mission success, as the consultant must work well within the unique culture of each customer.

Q. Consulting involves complex calculations in terms of managing risks. Without the automatic tool, each and every calculation regarding risks becomes difficult. How equipped are you to meet the complex risks?

We evaluate risk through a multi-faceted approach utilizing cost, technical maturity, and complexity models. In all cases, we want to provide value for our clients, and without careful consideration of scope, schedule, financial exposure, clearly defined requirements, and technical risk, it is impossible to provide realistic and reliable estimates and proposals. We do not rely on guesswork or anecdotal references. The mission of our clients is too important to risk, and failure to deliver on time, on budget, within quality standards, and on scope is not an option.

Q. How do you market your services?

RWG leverages the traditional marketing tools such as email, websites, social media channels, industry conferences, industry publications, etc. We also rely on our strong relationships with satisfied clients to provide referrals for future business. We feel our continued success is our best marketing tool.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We are preparing to launch a helpdesk offering as well as a Cybersecurity Incident Command Center as a Service.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers?

The future is bright for RWG.We are positioned in the market to grow in both the commercial and government segments. Our reputation as a firm that provides top quality expertise, stands behind their consultants, and always delivers value for our clients, continues to grow.

The Leader

Helen V. Thompson, Founder and CEO

Ms. Thompson has more than 30 years of healthcare information technology experience in commercial and government healthcare across various levels of care, including acute, ambulatory, sub-acute, behavioral, and long-term care in academic, community, and critical access settings as well as payers.She is a recognized thought leader in healthcare informatics as a Chief Information Officer (CIO), leadership coach, consultant, author, and international speaker. She has successfully championed, designed, and led the implementation of the clinical information systems to support excellent patient care, and served as an advocate for using information technology in the clinical setting.

Previously, Ms. Thompson held executive positions at Northern Light Health, WAKEMED Hospitals and Health System, CSC, Medical College of Georgia, Heartland Health, NCH Healthcare System, and Northpointe Behavioral Healthcare Systems.She retired from a notable military career, serving as deputy CIO of Strategy and Vision, Naval Reserve Forces; communications officer/CIO, EMF Dallas in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom; and medical CIO assignments for Joint Forces Command Surgeon, Great Lakes Naval Hospital, and Naval Medical Center Portsmouth.

“RWG excels at helping organizations adopt technology faster and drive business value.”