• Rapid implementation of enterprise financial, manufacturing and CRM applications
• Guaranteed uptime hosting reliability
• Embedded back up and disaster recovery

Situation

Better healthcare starts with helping medical staff spend more time with patients. It also involves improving response times using real-time data at the bedside. Flo Healthcare provides the tools to connect healthcare professionals wirelessly to real-time patient information at the point of care using superb design and ergonomics.

Improving patient care and safety is Flo Healthcare's top priority as the company works with clinical software and OEM business partners to deliver patented, integrated solutions—infrastructure, devices and services—to medical facilities. With 45,000 mobile devices and wireless infrastructure systems installed within approximately 800 hospitals, Flo Healthcare is the acknowledged leader in total hospital and system-wide wireless and mobile clinical workstation installations across the United States and Canada.

Challenge

A few years ago, management and investors spun Flo Healthcare out of its parent company. They realized the tremendous opportunity to grow the business by helping clinicians spend more quality time with patients through the use of wireless connections. An innovative, focused company could make a major impact on the market and create business value in a relatively short time. But this would require the swift deployment of business applications and the migration of historical information stored in the parent company's information systems.

Wes Thurmond, Vice President of Information Systems, explained, "The goal was to focus the new company on serving customers and building great products, and we couldn't afford the distraction of building applications ourselves or of adapting packaged applications internally. We wanted to select scalable software applications that would require very little customization and that would allow us to quickly get our business up-and-running on proven software applications. We didn't want the risks of managing software in-house and wanted to outsource our applications to a company that understood our business and could help us grow it quickly."

Flo Healthcare would have to select the applications and have them operational in less than 90 days—over the holiday season. "We didn't want to invest in building IT headcount internally, and we wanted a professionally hosted solution that could immediately make us function like an established company with proven processes and procedures," said Thurmond. "We didn't want to re-invent new applications and couldn't afford the time or cost of heavily customizing applications. We knew there were software applications out there that have evolved over time to address our business concerns, and we knew the successful implementation of enterprise software applications would require diverse skill sets that we did not want to build in-house."

Solution

Thurmond evaluated potential partners and selected OmniVue Business Solutions for implementing and operating the application hosting solution, which consists of Microsoft Dynamics GP primarily for financial and manufacturing management, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for managing new business opportunities and customer care. OmniVue also hosts Microsoft Exchange and manages e-mail for Flo Healthcare.
"Predictable costs, reliable results and a comprehensive set of services were some of our key criteria in selecting OmniVue to host our business-critical applications," said Thurmond. "We needed an IT partner we could rely on, and OmniVue provided the expertise and resources we needed to deploy scalable software applications that could help us grow our business."

Microsoft Dynamics GP
The financial tools of Microsoft Dynamics GP improve the transparency of a business while enabling organizations to make better, more informed decisions. This application has a long history of reliability and cost-effective operation. Microsoft Dynamics GP offers integrated capabilities for financial management, distribution, manufacturing, project accounting, human resource management and business analytics. It works smoothly with Microsoft Office and other Windows applications to streamline processes across an organization. It has allowed Flo Healthcare to connect financials with operations across its business to analyze performance and capture, process and analyze vital business information so management can focus on key business issues and drive continuously improving business performance levels.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps mid-market businesses like Flo Healthcare build profitable customer relationships, particularly by managing leads and opportunities more efficiently. It includes important features, such as incident management, a searchable knowledge base and a suite of reporting tools. Integrated marketing, sales and service modules enable employees to share information across locations, improving sales success and supporting consistent, efficient customer service. OmniVue has integrated Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Microsoft Dynamics GP so Flo Healthcare employees can gain an end-to-end view of customer service. For example, a sales representative can track orders through production and distribution, and manufacturing management can accurately forecast demand.

Benefits

Reduced Risk
"Our business model is based on focusing on managing the core functions of the company, so outsourcing IT functions for a predictable monthly fee allows us to reduce the risk of operational issues," said Thurmond. "We also minimized the financial risk by selecting proven business applications, minimizing our customization needs, avoiding the capital costs of purchasing dedicated servers and financing the software and consulting solution through Microsoft. Financing the solution allowed us to reduce our initial cash outlay, and the Microsoft applications deliver all the functionality we need today and can be expanded to support the growth of our business."

Swift Implementation
In November of 2003, management of Flo Healthcare and its parent company decided to move forward with the spinout, and the new applications had to be operational by February. The applications were selected and deployed in less than ninety days, which is particularly challenging because of the risk of seasonal vacations impacting the implementation schedules. "OmniVue knows how to implement these solutions and provided the expertise we needed to drive the schedule," stated Thurmond . "Hosting allowed us to more quickly implement the solution, and it also allowed us to minimize personnel risks since we were not hiring database administrators and application experts in-house. We were therefore able to avoid the schedule risk of going through the hiring process and the personnel risk of hiring the wrong people because we were in such a hurry to bring the applications online."

Guaranteed Hosting Reliability
As an important element of its application hosting service, OmniVue offers Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that clearly define services around response times, escalation procedures, application management, database management, operating systems, communications, infrastructure, and hardware. OmniVue takes complete accountability for its hosted solutions, from the hardware and software to the management and client support of the applications themselves. This level of environment management has resulted in continuous uptime—the applications have been continuously available since they went live in February of 2004.

Disaster Recovery
An added benefit of selecting the application hosting solution from OmniVue is the structured disaster recovery and backup plans embedded in the service. Data is always safe and accessible via offsite backups. "OmniVue takes care of the disaster recovery preparation, and I don't even have to think about it," said Thurmond. "We don't have to worry about our systems going down, and instead we can focus our time on serving our customers and building our products."

Real-Time Collaboration
The integrated applications and access to real-time information have enhanced collaboration between departments. For example, participants in production planning meetings can review real-time inventory status and product forecasts to accurately order components and allocate manufacturing resources.

Focusing on the Core Business
Because Flo Healthcare selected a hosted solution, the company was able to better focus on building, selling and supporting its wireless solutions for the healthcare industry. "We needed application expertise, but we didn't need it in-house," explained Thurmond. "Application hosting services from OmniVue allow us to avoid building a large IT department while providing employees throughout the company with the information they need to do their jobs well."

Ongoing Access to IT Experts
Flo Healthcare has easy access to applications and technical experts within OmniVue. According to Thurmond, "OmniVue provides us with access to application experts and technical personnel, and whenever I have a question OmniVue answers it right away. OmniVue assigned us a dedicated client care manager who understands our business and understands the Microsoft applications. We've worked with her since we started the hosting program, and if she doesn't know the answer to a question—which is extremely rare—she consults other experts within OmniVue who answer it quickly.'

Conclusion

Flo Healthcare succeeded in growing its business, and was recently acquired by Emerson Electric Company, a $17 billion company. It is now part of the InterMetro unit of Emerson's Storage Solutions division. "We run a very efficient business, and our financial, manufacturing and customer service applications provide clear reports that we publish regularly for managers at InterMetro," concluded Thurmond. 'We'll continue to rely on OmniVue's hosting solution, so we can continue to focus on growing our business.'