How rethinking IT strategy saved more than $150 million annually

What We Did

As a national healthcare system accelerated its move toward a patient-centric care model across a growing network of hospitals and clinics, it needed an IT strategy and architecture that could enable the transformation. That’s when they called us. We have a track record for turning technology into sustainable business value. Here, again, we were ready to deliver—working with the health system to:

• Develop an IT strategy that supports the health system’s business goals
• Lead a multi-year IT transformation
• Redesign the IT organization and operating model
• Develop IT infrastructure architecture standards and consolidate applications
• Migrate major applications (including EMR) to the cloud and “as a Service” model for greater agility and flexibility

The result: superior IT capabilities at a significantly lower cost. 

The Challenge

Through several acquisitions and organic growth, the national health system grew 300% to a national network of more than 100 acute care hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics. With underinvestment in standardizing its technology the aging IT infrastructure and legacy applications resulted in the IT organization being unable to keep up with the needs of business agility and flexibility. 

Additionally, with the industry transforming from a chronic-care model to a patient-centric model that requires consumers managing their health proactively, the organization needed to integrate disparate areas of patient care. But the company’s IT architecture and team could not support the greater level of integration. Aging IT infrastructure and a multitude of applications were impediments to adapting to the digital era of healthcare. As a result, IT service delivery quality declined while IT costs continued to increase. 

An Undeniably Different Approach

These are precisely the types of challenges we are built to solve. Our team of healthcare, IT strategy and transformation, and sourcing experts got to work. 

We brought together a multidisciplinary group of the client’s IT and business leaders to develop a vision and strategy for enabling digital transformation. This process considered the changes taking place across the healthcare industry, the company’s business goals, and the technology capabilities required to achieve those goals. Importantly, we made sure a senior representative from each of the markets at the client was engaged in supporting the changes ahead.

This enabled a comprehensive IT strategy that:

• Standardized and simplified technology in multiple business areas
• Developed IT capabilities to support telemedicine and remote care delivery
• Enhanced workflows to improve clinician efficiency
• Upgraded IT talent and filled critical skill gaps

The Output

• IT strategy, architecture, and organizational design
• Application rationalization
• Sourcing and implementation of a hybrid cloud infrastructure
• Deployment of upgraded LAN and WAN infrastructure with improved resiliency and redundancy
• Migration of major applications—including electronic medical records—to cloud and as-a-service model 

Returns You Can Measure

Integrating systems and deploying virtualized applications had a measurable impact, in many ways. For example, nurse productivity improved by more than 15%.

Our work also delivered significant cost savings. By retiring certain applications, the health system is saving more than $20 million annually. And moving major applications to the cloud and SaaS models generated an additional $150 million in savings over five years.

The organization now has the IT services and capabilities it needs to accelerate digital transformation, to compete effectively in a changing industry, and to deliver the type of healthcare that fulfills its mission.