Building an Entire EQMS Ecosystem

Ryan Blume has been working with ChoiceSpine for over 10 years and has played many important roles in the company, from IT and facilities management to virtual infrastructure and project management.

Most recently, he has been instrumental as the Project Manager in adopting and implementing ComplianceQuest’s EQMS and Salesforce administration. “I’m not an expert at any one thing, but I have a wide breadth of skills. Before we brought in ComplianceQuest, I had a general knowledge of the Salesforce platform and was impressed with its capabilities.”

As they were evaluating different EQMS vendors, Ryan had an eye-opening experience. “My wife was looking for a new car and happened to schedule an appointment with CarMax. When we arrived, her name was on a big flat screen TV along with the name of her salesperson and the car’s color, make, and model. We decided to purchase the car, and when we returned to do the paperwork, the salesperson turned the screen around. It looked very familiar to a Salesforce implementation we had used years ago.”

After some research, Ryan learned that CarMax is built on the Salesforce platform—from navigating their website and making appointments to collecting credit application information.

“When I saw this, I immediately thought about ComplianceQuest and what we wanted out of a quality management system. Because they’re built on the Salesforce platform, it meant we could build an entire ecosystem for the company that ultimately encompassed quality management, design control, risk mitigation, complaint handling, reporting, etc.”

Ryan’s varied background and expertise havehas been a great asset to ChoiceSpine. As the IT manager, he works closely with the ComplianceQuest team to configure and implement each module. “Internally, I’m known as the ComplianceQuest guru. If you don’t understand something, you can come to me and we work through it. I’ll know the answer or know where to find the answer because I have managed every aspect of the project implementation.”

Not everyone has the same level of IT understanding, and Ryan has helped the regulatory team interpret their manual processes and convert those into digital processes. “I listened to them, asked probing questions, and learned everything I could about their work process and flow. I was able to take that information, communicate it to the ComplianceQuest implementation team, and keep the project moving towards its completion.”

Ryan made what can be a challenging process much easier through his IT and project management experience with Choice Spine. “I don’t know how a company could pull this off without an IT professional playing a central role in the implementation and administration of an EQMS system. It takes someone with an intimate knowledge of the business and how it operates, the necessary IT knowledge, and a partnership with department leaders to get the desired result.”

“With ComplianceQuest, all a user needs is an internet connection and a mobile device. I can access quality records from my phone, sign documents electronically, and work from anywhere in the world. It’s a great time savings, it’s secure, and it’s a much better solution than the manual process we moved away from.”