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Windows Desktop Hosting
Overview
Metropolitan Cardiology provides comprehensive cardiac specialty care at Mercy,
Unity and Buffalo Hospitals located in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis,
MN. Currently there are 17 cardiologists as well as 7 midlevel providers. They
have 5 clinic sites in the region, within 45 minutes of one another, and see
over 20,000 patients per year at its clinics. They have over 120 employees
and are in the process of adding more clinic sites.
Challenge
Metropolitan Cardiology has had difficulty finding and retaining consistent,
reliable IT staff to employ. They went through four IT staff in three years
and could not find and retain the right person. They implemented a new IT network
in 2000, but by late 2004 the
IT network had become a headache with latency issues and down-time. Their number
one problem was IT personnel.
By early to mid 2005 it was apparent that they
would need to invest in a major IT network hardware
refresh and hire another IT network administrator.
The capital cost of the IT network hardware refresh
would be quite significant and they were certainly
not enthused about hiring their fifth IT staff
person in less than five years.
One of the most mission critical line-of-business
applications for Metropolitan Cardiology is their
Centricity practice management software. They also
have 15 other applications that are unique to their
health care specialty.
Solution
Bill Hafdal, Solbrekk VP of Business Development has essentially served as
the CIO for Metropolitan Cardiology for over eight years. Mike Rasmussen, Metropolitan
Cardiology Administrator said “I do business with people that deliver
and do what they say they are going to do.” Bill spent time educating
Mike about the value that Windows Desktop Hosting can provide to an organization
like Metropolitan Cardiology.
Bill and Mike went through extensive analysis
of the Windows Desktop Hosting model including detailed
cost and ROI analysis. They determined that the
long-term cost of Windows Desktop Hosting would be
about the same, plus or minus 5%. They also toured
the Netgain datacenter in St. Cloud and Mike really
liked the idea of moving the responsibility of
the datacenter to a third-party expert. Bill stated, “The
clients that trust me and listen to my advice are
wonderful to work with. Mike knows I always have
his best interests in mind and I am always going
to give my clients the best solution.”
Metropolitan Cardiology cut over to application
hosting in December 2005. Mike had this to say
about Solbrekk’s Windows Desktop Hosting partner,
Netgain Technologies “They are well organized
and delivered what they said they would deliver.
There were a few hiccups early on, but they were
resolved, and there have been almost no issues
since. We would rate Netgain a ten. We recently
merged with another practice that had a different
Windows Desktop Hosting service provider. Netgain and
Solbrekk offer significantly more service for significantly
less cost than the other clinic’s provider.”
Benefits & Results
Mike Rasmussen stated “If we had gone ahead with the major IT network
refresh in 2005 it would have meant a significant time commitment for Darlene,
Cristinand me. The decision to go with Windows Desktop Hosting relieved us of a
huge head-ache and time
commitment both for managing the initial project and for the ongoing management
and administration. Our staff is ecstatic and loves the change.”
They are in the process of adding 2more hospitals
and additional clinic sites. Network integration
of the new locations via Windows Desktop Hosting is
of little concern during the planning and integration
processes. Under the previous on-site model, the
integration of the additional locations would have
been a large and very risky project.
Staffing requirements would have been difficult and IT would have taken focus
away from the rest of the merger planning and integration.
Mike Rasmussen said “My staff and I very
seldom have to deal with IT network problems. One
of the biggest benefits of Windows Desktop Hosting
is the Netgain help desk. The Netgain helpdesk
team does a great job and takes a great deal of
pressure off of my staff. The latency issues that
we had with our network went away when we went
to the Windows Desktop Hosting model. Windows Desktop Hosting
is great from a budgeting perspective and a cost
control perspective. We have experienced a 10%
to 12% growth in the past year with a reduction
in IT costs. Now we can focus on running
our cardiology business instead of running our
IT network.”
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