Ensuring Success in NIDCD’s Return to Physical Workspace Effort

Many workplaces faced new challenges transitioning to virtual workspaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID control methods have changed throughout the past three years, meaning that organizations may now find themselves evolving their workspaces to meet critical goals. LCG teammates played important roles on the Return to Work team at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), receiving the coveted NIDCD Director’s Recognition award. 

The Return to Work team at the National institutes of Health (NIH) is a program to support the transition back to a physical workspace. Many departments needed to create flexible workspaces to welcome employees back to a hybrid work environment, while also being mindful of the needs of employees. 

LCG’s Return to Work team at NIDCD coordinated and established hoteling spaces, refit client offices for in-person use, and acclimated users to the new hybrid workplace. The following LCG teammates on the Return to Work team received the NIDCD Director’s Recognition:

  • Dan Berger
  • Christopher Adams
  • Brandon Gomez
  • Hemalben Harkhani
  • Naveen Lanke
  • Dagmawi Jiru

LCG Passes ISO 9001:2015 Surveillance Audit, Recognizing the Quality of its Performance

LCG has successfully passed its ISO 9001:2015 Surveillance Audit of the Quality Management System (QMS) validating a commitment to standardize and maintain the highest level of quality service to customers and verifying its continuous improvement of processes.

In 2022, LCG formalized its continued commitment to quality by forming a Quality Control department which also includes Client Relationship Management (CRM). Before the creation of the Quality Control department, LCG was a small company that was attaining and maintaining quality certifications by organically applying the vision of leadership and maintaining high standards of employees.

Following best practices, the Quality Control department works closely with the Service Delivery team and the Project Management Office (PMO) to ensure customer service quality remains high. At the same time, they work across the company to implement processes on an ongoing process to document and improve service delivery and operations.

Achieving ISO 9001 certification is intensive with annual audits to show the company has practices in place which demonstrate the company’s level of quality. The International Organization of Standards (ISO) provides a library of standards to fulfill which the company then fits to its goals and vision.

The current certification was awarded in 2020 and is maintained every year through a “surveillance audit” during which specific areas of the company are selected for audit. The following year, a different area of the company is audited. A member of the executive leadership team is present throughout the audit.

LCG will undergo a full audit of its 2023 quality performance in 2024.

In the words of Carlene Carter, LCG’s Vice President of Quality & CRM, “We work from the inside out, maintaining a solid internal infrastructure, reducing waste, and increasing productivity. Our Service Delivery teams work on improving our customers’ experiences every day. We monitor our success through customer surveys and CPARs. We also socialize the importance of maintaining high standards, have a company-wide Process Improvement Committee, and even run mock audits with heads of departments.”

The company performed exceptionally well with LCG passing the Surveillance Audit with zero non-conformities at any level.

Modernizing Legacy Data: AudBase

Building customer-focused solutions aren’t just buzz words at successful companies – it’s part of the corporate DNA. It starts at the top with strong leadership vision and it multiplies across departments with employees breaking down silos to serve the company and customer missions.

A recent example comes from our client, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) – one of 27 Institutes and Centers at NIH – where Ravi Kosuri of LCG recently received the Director’s Award for his work on NIDCD’s Audiology project.

NIDCD’s Audiology project was a small part of a very large project the LCG team was working on in 2022.

The larger project had an extensive project management plan with timelines, tasks, and deliverables identified upfront with the customer. An immediate need was identified to provide NIDCD Audiology staff with a way to read and process data from the AudBase system.

The team’s approach was quickly shifted to progressive elaboration by LCG’s project manager, Ashley Stanton. Progressive elaboration is an iterative Agile project management technique that allows for a project plan to evolve as information is gathered. This approach, as well as its short turnaround time, made the AudBase project very unusual from the start.

Even when the pressure was on to rapidly turn the new project, time had to be spent in the early days determining the foundational nature of the challenge. Since the service delivery team was deeply embedded in the project, they worked with customer stakeholders to understand their needs. Multiple technical options and their impact were researched with cost and risk analyses so the team could recommend the path forward. Ravi worked collaboratively with the developer, third-party vendors, and government employees to implement a cloud-based database solution that met NIDCD’s needs on time and under budget.

By conceptualizing the best solution and accomplishing the client’s goals and objectives on the tight timeline, Ravi’s team successfully delivered a:

  • Web service interface (Azure-hosted API interface with AudBase)
  • Data transformation engine (JSON parser)
  • Cloud-based relational database
  • Accessible interface for third-party applications (such as RedCap, QlikSense, or Power BI)

Not only did Ravi receive the NIH Director’s award but the entire LCG team was recognized by the Center for Information Technology (CIT) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as one of the pioneers in using the NIH Azure Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES) Initiative.

The end result is a new concept and technique for conducting and supporting biomedical and behavioral research and research training in the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech, and language.

Ravi Kosuri is LCG’s principal architect supporting the life science advancements in biomedical research at NIDCD.

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