Maximizing IT Resource Potential in Healthcare - HubSpot

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Maximizing IT Resource Potential in Healthcare Source powerful, cost-effective IT on your terms

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 

 3

- IT Costs are rising

Take Back Your IT 

 4

Cerner Management 

 5

About 4th Source 

 6

4th Source Hybrid US-Mexico Sourcing Model 

 7

Clinical Research Information Systems 

 8

Did You Know? 

 9

Elevating Corporate Wellness Technology 

 10

ServiceNow for Hospitals 

 11

Pharmacy Process Managed Services 

 12

Pharmacy Data Solutions 

 13

Conclusion 

 14

Balancing Capability Cost & Culture 

 15

2 | 4th Stories 2 | 4thSource SourceSuccess Success Stories

Introduction What can we do about IT resources? The typical healthcare provider IT team is spread thin. While digital transformation is establishing a foothold, CMIO’s are being shown “the next big thing” – splitting their attention between operations and innovation. The ideals of value-based care, coupled with the continued execution (and management) of modernization projects are causing tension within the business and IT ranks of healthcare providers. According to a recent Gartner-AMDIS report surveying CMIOs, 2016 was the first year in which CMIOs most frequently named “inadequate IT resources” as the top challenge to health management and value-based delivery. The split role of the CMIO is even more evident as the report cites governance (defined as a “lack of system [structure], too many strategies, and too many priorities”) as a key organizational barrier. There’s simply too much for the modern healthcare IT department to handle while remaining flexible enough to take on new projects.

IT Costs are rising According to an article by CIO, over ½ of all IT projects are 189% over budget.

With increasing pressure for one IT team to learn new skills, the question has become how to allocate those resources to tackle digital transformation efforts and still run the organization – all at a cost-effective rate. This document was created to help healthcare IT departments navigate a path forward. Using real 4th Source success stories, we’ll explore how to expand management resources for systems like Cerner, ServiceNow, and CRIS, while also capping the associated cost. Learn how the modern healthcare IT organization can set the stage to optimize current operations, and open the door to the next transformative technology.

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TAKE BACK YOUR IT How can we control spending while resolving IT issues? How can we focus on patient outcomes and improve our technology systems without adding complexity? Let’s take a look at real cases in healthcare IT that leverage adaptation, flexibility, speed, and quality for cost advantages.

4 | 4th Source Success Stories

SUCCESS STORY

Cerner Management Up to Speed in Months, Not Years Adaptation is the backbone of digital transformation. Through the Rapid Transition MethodologyTM, 4th Source replaced an underperforming offshore vendor, and became the trusted Cerner team for one of the world’s leading hospitals in children’s cancer research. Cerner solution at a glance 

Cerner Command Language (CCL) & Millennium Objects - Creating .Net and Java requests to extract data



Customized reporting and notifications



Automation



Custom development



System support

The 4th Source Cost Advantage Dedicated Cerner Employee

Dedicated 4th Source Cerner Team

Cerner Consultant

$ 150-200  / h r

$ 60-90  / h r

$ 240-300  / h r

Pe r p e r s o n

Pe r p e r s o n

Pe r p e r s o n

4th Source’s team, on average, costs less than ½ of a dedicated employee and less than 1/3 of a Cerner consultant.*

4th Source developed the following Cerner applications: 

A scheduling dashboard to help the hospital identify where patients and staff need to be. The tool takes Cerner scheduling and displays it on large monitors across the hospital.



A diagnostic imaging tool that helps techs make sure that they’re setting up the machines correctly, giving patients the right to dosages of dye, and performing radiation treatments with more accuracy.



A tool that enables physicians to communicate the exact steps of treatment plans as they are generated or altered, as Cerner does not inherently adapt to custom treatments.

Due to the strong, four-year relationship, this hospital has had no desire to bring Cerner expertise in house. Instead of worrying about the support and functionality of Cerner and their IT division, they focus on finding cures for childhood cancer.

*Rates as of 2017 (subject to change).

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About 4th Source

4th Source offers quality, cost-effective resources to accelerate your IT agenda.

6 | 4th Source Success Stories

4th Source Hybrid US-Mexico Sourcing Model 4th Source blends nearshore and onshore development models, offering a balance of capability, cost, and culture. Source quality, cost-effective resources to accelerate your IT agenda on your terms.

US. Florida US. California Mexico Offshore Not Recommended

Delivery Approach While nearshore sourcing is a powerful method to leverage, there are certain projects that require a different approach. We can configure a blended Mexico-US team to meet your specific needs and engagement requirements.

ONSITE 

Get a team of expertly trained engineers onsite within a day. No questions asked.

ONSHORE 

Quality remote work from our US offices, and meetings on your time, on your terms.

OFFSHORE 

Project handoffs with offshore time differences prevent real-time collaboration. While rates are lower, overall costs surpass promises. Visas for on-site visits are far more complicated and there is a discrepancy in cultural alignment making work communication difficult.

NEARSHORE 

The Mexico IT delivery model offers the best blend of capability, culture, and cost. Visas allow for next-day travel when needed.

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SUCCESS STORY

Clinical Research Information Systems 14X Faster Data. Less Headaches. The children’s cancer research hospital supports 47 departments and over 400 research protocols at all times, all running on their clinical research information system (CRIS). 4th Source dedicated two US-based, full-time resources to CRIS support for six months. In addition, 4th Source supplied day and night shifts onsite, remote support from Mexico, and monitored nightly runs. These extra hours enabled the 4th Source team to learn the associated research processes quickly, and reassured that the hospital could continue their clinical research timelines on their terms. The largest project within CRIS involved migrating 24 protocols from a duplicate instance. The prior offshore vendor had mishandled metadata, relationships, and mapping – compromising ongoing research projects. The 4th Source team restarted the CRIS dual system migration, rewriting the entire project, and completed all twenty-four protocol migrations on time.

Data Migration Performance Comparison: A leukemia clinical trial, the largest and most visible protocol for the hospital, was successfully migrated by 4th Source in twenty-eight minutes. It took the previous offshore vendor over six hours to migrate the same protocol, and they were ultimately unsuccessful. Previous vendor: 



Migrated one protocol (only in testing – unsuccessful in production)

4th Source: 

Successfully migrated for all 24 protocols



Production run took 28 minutes

Development test took 6.5 hours to run

4th Source developed system enhancements that mapped research phases, such as chemotherapy outcomes, providing transparency to researchers. After the migration, data was synchronized and the researchers worked with a single, transparent system.

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Did you know?

COST

QUALITY

More than ½ of all IT projects are 189% over budget

Only 12% of IT teams can deliver fast enough AND with high quality

CAPACITY

SPEED

Demand has irreversibly exceeded the capacity of traditional IT

Only 17% of IT teams deliver fast enough for their business clients

Source: IT Speed – The Crisis And The Savior Of The Enterprise A Forrester Consulting Study

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SUCCESS STORY

Elevating Corporate Wellness Technology The Ultimate DIGITAL STRONG Experience Healthy employees have 41% lower health related costs compared to less active peers. The world-class fitness trainers at FX Well partnered with 4th Source to empower more workforces – by creating a digital platform where businesses of any size could organize wellness campaigns and track user progress through the phones and fitness trackers people use every day, then support it all through ServiceNow®. Today, the FX Well mobile app fuels the needs of health-conscious customers such as Under Armour, Kaiser Permanente, and the Indiana National GuardHealthy employees have 41% lower health related costs compared to less active peers

IT Talent Right Outside Your Door

4th Source had the flexibility to send developers right to FX Well’s offices on a full-time basis. “The rate of getting the app where we wanted it to be was 10X faster.” – Nate Costa, CEO of FX Well Always Cost-Effective One of the most important KPI’s was to be cost conscious. 4th Source’s project bid was 40% lower than a larger global IT firm. The hybrid nearshore-onshore sourcing model kept costs down while delivering on all mandates. The world-class fitness trainers at FX Well partnered with 4th Source to empower more workforces – by creating a digital platform where businesses of any size could organize wellness campaigns and track user progress through the phones and fitness trackers people use every day, then support it all through ServiceNow®.

4th Source Cost Advantages: Built, tested & managed at a 40% lower rate for the ultimate digital strong partnership experience Using a Xamarin shared code base cut mobile costs by 1/3 & accelerated time to market

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Hosted ServiceNow® domain 

85% first-touch resolution



30-minute average resolution time



15-minute average response time

SUCCESS STORY

ServiceNow for Hospitals Hospital Restructures IT with ServiceNow Like many healthcare organizations, this children’s research hospital developed multiple custom applications that became difficult to support over time. They were facing a problem quantifying internal work. Different departments were using different systems. Processes and procedures were disjointed, adding pressure to meet regular inventory audit objectives. The hospital quickly made the decision to bring in 4th Source to help with ServiceNow implementation, and to begin developing processes including: Incident management

Problem management

Change management

CMDB configurations

4th Source conducted several onsite workshops to guide the hospital team through implementation. The hospital stopped using of third party asset software, consolidating different asset monitoring applications into the asset management application within ServiceNow and their CMDB under one license. Asset management and configuration management databases were implemented so the hospital can know exactly where assets are at all times, lowering costs of semi-annual inventory audits.

9.65 Customer Satisfaction Score

4th Source ServiceNow© Cost Advantages & Experience 42% lower bid for ServiceNow professional services projects

9 expanding ServiceNow platform projects in the past 12 months

48% lower bid for managed services subscription models

20+ years of IT service management and operations experience

An average CSAT rating of 9.5

1000’s of hours of ServiceNow technical professional services

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SUCCESS STORY

Pharmacy Process Managed Services Fortune 25 PBM Reduces Ticket Volumes by 42% in One Year Like many large organizations tipping the scales towards innovation, this healthcare juggernaut was experiencing ever-growing mission-critical outages. The open rate was higher than the close rate every month, adding to a ticket volume of over 19,000 per year. The PBM called 4th Source to figure a way to slow the ticket open rate and close incident gaps. Examining the Root Cause & Developing System Enhancements Of the tickets opened, the 4th Source managed services team developed production code fixes based on prioritization and delivered on all contractual SLAs. They fixed root issues by diving into system codes and processes, developing application enhancements using GAPs.

Resolving Open Tickets

Active Prevention

Some MSPs work to contain, others stomp out the fire entirely. The 4th Source team reduced the ticket volumes so much that they eventually worked themselves out of the project – and now fill a general maintenance role.

In addition to ticket reduction, a strong managed services program includes maintenance to prevent future system issues. 4th Source built custom monitoring and update tools including real time queue processing and database automation.

Results: 

Ticket reduction of 42% in one year (the original requirement was 15%)



85% of all inbound tickets are now closed in 3 days or less

Results: 



100% of GAPs delivery in year one of the contract Paving the way to closing more tickets than were opened: 101.33% close rate

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4th Source’s 24/7 system monitoring is conducted by a 9-person dedicated support team and includes: 

Hourly system health checks with reporting



Daily morning SMS to leadership



17 services monitored hourly



18 FTP processes monitored daily



35 batch jobs monitored daily

SUCCESS STORY

Pharmacy Data Solution 4th Source Developed a HIPAA Compliant Solution to Simulate Production Environment PHI Data in a Non-Production Testing Environment Update releases were causing system disruptions when pharmacy specialists were trying to access patient information in real-time, causing delays in patient care. A 4th Source team was designated to root out the underlying cause of system failures upon release updates. They discovered discrepancies between how data was treated in non-production testing environments, and how it was treated upon a production release. The non-production environment would respond to updates within one second. The customer would sign off on the update and move it to release, where it would take hours to move the code and data. 4th Source found that the testing environment used hundreds of data points, whereas the production environment consisted of millions of customer information fields.

Improving Patient Services The 4th Source team created a testing environment that simulated the real number of data in production, but without displaying patient information. This would ensure a PHI compliant environment for developing future enhancements.

The entire project took roughly thirty hours to complete, with the data scramble process taking eight hours. The result was a more stable release cycle – going from between ten and fifteen production issues per release, to one or two production issues every few months. Before:

After:



10 – 15 production issues per update/release



1 – 2 production issues every few months



System downtime



Faster system release updates



Interrupted patient services



Improved patient service



Increased productivity

The new testing environment accurately simulated the production environment, and changed the game for testing teams. Everyone from QA to UAT was on the same page, and release updates were being pushed out faster. In addition, the added productivity and service meant that patients were having less problems.

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Conclusion Healthcare IT Departments Require Problem Solvers More Than Ever IT departments are being pulled in multiple directions while costs are increasing, and leadership is looking for balance. As we wrote in a recent blog post, IT departments no longer have to decide between operations management and innovation. According to CIO.com, “having an MSP as part of your IT mix can free up internal IT staff for more strategic projects. But establishing a strong, strategic partnership with your MSP is essential.” That strategic relationship means: 

Resisting the urge to bargain shop – you get what you pay for



Finding a partner who speaks in terms of your business outcomes over general technology



Finding a partner with a proven track record

The complexities and interconnectivity of systems (a curse and blessing of cloud technology) requires more than a basic technical mindset. This is where many offshore vendors fall short – often focusing on individual tasks over the broader mission. Low-cost incentives are negated by project delays and a lack of transparency.

The modern healthcare IT organization does not measure outcomes by hours worked or by technical tasks. They measure outcomes in terms of lives improved – and how fast they can do that. A well-planned managed services approach, when tied to business objectives, opens the door for further innovation. If managed services and innovation are closely tied to outcomes, growth, and resources - what if we link them? 4th Source does that with the Persistent Team™ model. Part MSP and part business strategist, this model ensures that managed services are always tied to business objectives with a flexible resource bench. Expect both cost savings and adaptability with 4th Source. The Rapid Transition and Persistent Team™ models are the next step in the evolution of nearshore outsourcing. There is no one-size-fits-all IT model. Every organization is unique. The ability to quickly adapt to your organization’s needs is how 4th Source maintains quality excellence at cost-effective rates.

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Balancing Capability Cost & Culture Proximity Matters

LEGAL All contractors are 4th Source employees. Rigorous hiring process

CONVENIENT Onsite availability when needed. No questions asked

COST-EFFECTIVE 40% lower project bid average than global outsourcing firms

500+ 500+ employees ready to move your digital agenda forward, faster

No hidden costs or overtime charges

CONSISTENT 12+ years of delivery excellence Low attrition. Anchors stay on account.

A hybrid US-Mexico sourcing model working on your terms

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ABOUT 4TH SOURCE 4th Source provides powerful, cost-effective IT services as an alternative to offshore outsourcing. Headquartered in Tampa, FL, 4th Source employs over 500 people in the US and Mexico, and helps performance-driven businesses become digital strong with IT services, business process services, data services, and application development. The hybrid nearshore-onshore model offers convenient proximity, similar time zones, efficiency gains, and significant cost savings. Inc. Magazine has recognized 4th Source as one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. six times.

ADDRESS: 2502 N. Rocky Point Drive, Suite 960 Tampa, FL 33607 TEL. (855) 875-4700

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