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Earlier this month the Perot Systems Healthcare team celebrated a milestone in their 16-year relationship with Tenet Healthcare—a new 10-year contract to manage all of the information technology systems in Tenet's 56 hospitals. As part of the agreement, Perot Systems will transition 400 new employees from within Tenet hospitals IT departments across the US into the company.

Members of the Tenet account leadership team along with Perot Systems senior leaders, Ross Perot, Sr. and Peter Altabef, congratulated associates in a celebratory forum held in the Plano campus, which was broadcast to more than 10 locations in Texas, California, Pennsylvania and Florida, where Tenet account teams also held celebrations.

For Client Executive Vic Richey this experience was the biggest, most complicated, and most rewarding negotiation of his career. “It has been a learning and growing experience, as well as a very rewarding experience to see the fruits of our labors over the past 16 years, and specifically the last five years, be highlighted with a renewal of this size and scope,” said Richey amidst a crowd of cheers from associates. “I must again reiterate the importance of the day-to-day delivery of our associates on the front lines, delivering key systems and keeping our clients satisfied. This is the key ingredient to a long and successful relationship.  We are fortunate to have Tenet as a client and to have the hundreds of talented associates across the globe dedicated to delivering outstanding performance.”

The key to the renewal was the consistent and combined delivery of services provided to Tenet over the years. From helpdesk services, to infrastructure, to application support and development and facility IT support, Perot Systems delivered a comprehensive solutions package, thereby earning the opportunity to renew, quickly negotiate, and close the deal on November 16.

“The team created an atmosphere of trust and confidence with the Tenet leadership in accepting our proposals to take on the work to manage all their hospital systems,” said Richey. “We have a lot to do to finish this transition and we will have many people involved over the next few months.   We look forward to completing the transition and adding 400 talented associates to Perot Systems by March 1, 2007.”

During his address, Vic Richey thanked the following associates and leaders for their significant roles in making this contract extension possible:

• Doug Jackson and Steve Jacoy led the continued globalization planning activities, and without their dedicated focus on this large portion of the contract, an agreement would not have been reached by November.
  
  
• Jamie Dye and the entire existing Facility IT outsourced organization should be thanked for their support. Jamie leads this group and has developed a level of trust and confidence with Tenet leadership that made it possible to receive this opportunity. The flawless operation of the existing 15 hospitals that are currently outsourced convinced Tenet to give Perot Systems the additional 41 hospitals.
  
  
• Tom Breeding had the opportunity to run financial models for this deal. A deal of this size often requires endless modeling, and Tom spent many long nights and weekends responding to the various interests on a deal of this magnitude.
  
  
• Linda Rader attended all of the negotiations and assisted in various portions of this exercise. She was the primary point on document control between both Tenet and Perot Systems legal departments.
  
  
• Bill Smith was at the negotiating table, working the issues, the people, the emotions, and providing counsel to other members of the team.
  
  
• Meredith Suder provided outstanding financial direction, strategy and negotiations with the Tenet financial team.
  
  
• Sharon Wood provided consistency across previous Tenet contracts and was instrumental throughout the entire negotiation process. Without her guidance and experience, this deal could not have been closed so quickly.
  
  
• Chuck Lyles was integral in the key relationship with Steve Brown, Executive Vice President and CIO for Tenet.  The key meetings in which Chuck provided guidance and oversight were really the key milestones of the overall negotiations.

Click here to view the news release