Catholic Healthcare West

Exceed Business Objectives with Consolidated IT Operations

When Catholic Healthcare West's disparate IT organization did not allow for the promotion of operations as a single, efficient enterprise, Perot Systems facilitated a solution that would accelerate the organization's ability to meet strategic objectives.

The Challenge

During the process of growing from a group of 10 hospitals in 1986 to a system of more than 40 hospitals in a tri-state area over a five-year period, Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) faced technical and financial challenges associated with integrating very diverse information technologies. In many cases, hospitals within a region did not use compatible IT systems. As a result, CHW was unable to move key initiatives forward in a timely, efficient manner.

The Solution

CHW selected Perot Systems to provide full-service IT and telecommunications services as part of a system-wide reorganization to achieve $101 million in performance improvements and a break-even budget. As a result, Perot Systems provides IT operations and applications services to CHW's hospitals. This IT integration and consolidation approach is allowing CHW to realize economies of scale and to improve levels of service across the health system.

“IT plays a critical role in our operations and serves as a foundation for our ability to meet our business objectives,” said Michael Blaszyk, executive vice president and chief financial officer of CHW. “Since the inception of our outsourcing relationship, Perot Systems has made significant progress in making our IT strategy a reality. The IT organization now has the structure and discipline needed to operate efficiently, while at the same time, remaining flexible enough to meet our evolving business needs.”

Perot Systems implemented an IT governance process and a Performance Evaluation Report Card (PERC) system at CHW to ensure that the unified team is accountable for achieving performance benchmarks in support of CHW’s mission, business, and financial goals.

Perot Systems’ service delivery organization supports all IT initiatives across the CHW organization, such as data center operations, network management, applications management, and  end-user support.

Perot Systems and CHW have completed the process of migrating 20 data centers into one enterprise facility-centralizing support. They have also consolidated 19 informal help desks that ran on four different applications into one Enterprise Service Center, which is available on a 24x7 basis.

The centralized help desk function runs on a single application and handles nearly 30,000 calls per month. The help desk achieves a remarkable first-call resolution rate, considering the diverse environment of more than 700 applications that it supports.

The joint team is currently implementing Cerner Clinical Solutions and the Lawson Consolidated and Financial System across the entire CHW organization.  To date, this partnership has allowed CHW to move quickly towards its vision of a fully integrated corporation with minimal disruption and impressive initial cost savings.