Microsoft Customer SolutionCustomer Solution Case Study

Hospital Chooses Online Services to Modernize Messaging Environment

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Healthcare

Customer ProfileGrady Health System provides hospital, primary, and specialized healthcare for people in and around Atlanta, Georgia. Grady has 5,000 employees and operates more than a dozen healthcare facilities.

Business SituationIn the middle of a major IT overhaul, Grady needed to upgrade an aging email environment so that it would be easier to manage and would provide its employees with the tools they need to collaborate effectively.

SolutionAfter evaluating several cloud-based messaging solutions, Grady adopted Microsoft Exchange Online and other online services in the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite.

Benefits Modernized messaging Effective collaboration Streamlined IT management High agility with reduced investment

“Microsoft… was absolutely engaged in building a strong relationship and providing support and feedback when we needed it. We just didn’t get the same type of enterprise-level response from other vendors.”

Kevin Yearick, Director of Network Services, Grady Health System

As Grady Health System transformed its governance from a government-based hospital authority to a private, not-for-profit corporation, it began an overhaul of its IT infrastructure that included the deployment of a comprehensive revenue cycle and electronic medical records system. The organization realized that it also needed to replace its aging GroupWise messaging environment, but with its IT staff already taxed, Grady wanted to avoid having to install and manage additional infrastructure. After evaluating several cloud-based messaging solutions, Grady adopted the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. Now Grady has modernized its messaging environment, improved collaboration among employees, streamlined IT management, and built a more agile messaging environment while avoiding more than U.S.$100,000 in capital expenses.

SituationGrady Health System has been providing healthcare services for the residents of greater Atlanta, Georgia, since 1892. Today, Grady Memorial Hospital is an internationally recognized teaching hospital staffed by doctors from the Emory and Morehouse schools of medicine. It operates the only Level-1 trauma center in the Atlanta area and provides state-of-the-art burn, stroke, and asthma care. In addition to a 953-bed hospital, Grady Health System operates a Primary Care Center, eight Neighborhood Health Centers, and specialized centers for diabetes, cancer, and breast health.

In 2008, Grady transformed its governance from a government-based hospital authority to a private not-for-profit corporation, and the health system is now run by a corporate board composed of Atlanta-area medical, business, and civic leaders. At the same time, Grady also received a significant infusion of capital to upgrade its hospital facilities, operations, and IT infrastructure.

In a little more than two years, the IT department at Grady overhauled the hospital’s entire network architecture and enterprise resource planning (ERP) environment; replaced its phone system with voice over IP (voice capabilities that are delivered using Internet Protocol); deployed state-of-the-art diagnostic, treatment, and monitoring applications used in the burn, neuroscience, radiology, cardiology, and other departments; and installed a comprehensive electronic medical records (EMR) system to manage both clinical and revenue processes across the entire organization.

In the middle of this major IT overhaul, Grady realized it also needed to upgrade its email environment. The organization used GroupWise technology from Novell to manage its messaging and email, but the aging environment had become prone to frequent breakdowns, and it did not interoperate well with Grady’s other IT systems or the messaging environments at the healthcare provider’s partners.

“With our legacy email system, we had trouble coordinating basic functions like calendars and contacts, which made it more difficult to collaborate with the partners that were helping us develop and build our EMR system,” says Kevin Yearick, Director of Network Services at Grady Health System. “On top of that, our legacy email environment was down at least once a week. Fighting servers is a big waste of time, and we had one full-time staff person who had to spend at least half his time just dealing with those servers.”

Grady wanted to install an upgraded messaging environment that would match the rest of its new IT infrastructure. It wanted an environment that would be easier to manage and provide its employees with the tools they need to communicate and collaborate effectively. However, the IT department already had its hands full with all the other IT projects, and it wanted to find a financially and operationally efficient solution.

“We already had so many priority-one projects to finish that the complexities of building the tiered messaging environment we needed would have been extremely challenging,” says Yearick. “We couldn’t

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“It is difficult to support an enterprise if you’re using technology that other businesses don’t. We felt that going with Microsoft Online Services was the best choice to stay ahead of the technology curve without getting isolated on the outer fringes.”

Kevin Yearick, Director of Network Services, Grady Health System

afford to let anything fall through the cracks, so the idea of relying on somebody else to manage our messaging infrastructure became very attractive to us.”

SolutionInstead of having to buy, install, and maintain new servers and software to administer email on-premises, Grady wanted to manage its messaging environment with cloud technology—computing resources hosted in off-site data centers and delivered as services over the Internet. The hospital evaluated several cloud-based solutions, including the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, a package of messaging and collaboration solutions offered through Microsoft Online Services.

According to Yearick, the Microsoft team was so much more responsive and engaged than the other vendors the company evaluated and epitomized the type of vendor relationship Grady was looking for. “It was important to us that the relationship truly was a relationship, and not just a sale,” he says. “Our Microsoft account representative was absolutely engaged in building a strong relationship and providing support and feedback when we needed it. We just didn’t get the same type of enterprise-level response from other vendors.”

After its experience with its aging email environment, using a messaging solution that few other organizations used, Grady valued the familiarity and wide acceptance of Microsoft technologies in the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. “It is difficult to support an enterprise if you’re using technology that other businesses

don’t,” says Yearick. “We felt that going with Microsoft Online Services was the best choice to stay ahead of the technology curve without getting isolated on the outer fringes.”

Grady was already using many Microsoft technologies, such as the Windows XP operating system and Microsoft Office 2007 productivity software. The Microsoft account team showed Grady how it could use its existing Microsoft licenses to temporarily install Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 on-premises and help to clean up the organization’s Active Directory service before switching to Microsoft Exchange Online, the hosted enterprise-messaging component of Business Productivity Online.

In mid-2010, Grady adopted Exchange Online for 300 employees and tested two more components of Business Productivity Online—Microsoft Office Communications Online for instant messaging and Microsoft Office Live Meeting for web conferencing—with 50 employees. By October 2010, Grady had upgraded its messaging environment to Exchange Online for 3,000 employees throughout the organization, and by April 2011, Grady rolled out Office Communications Online to an additional 150 people. Additionally, Grady was able to quickly and efficiently provide email accounts to 1,000 nurses.

Another factor for Grady was delivering a messaging environment that its employees would be familiar with and could adopt easily. “We were asking our workforce to adapt to a lot of change, and it would have been tough to ask them to switch to an email platform that they didn’t know,” says

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“We were asking our workforce to adapt to a lot of change, and it would have been tough to ask them to switch to an email platform that they didn’t know. IT people may know about other systems, but our user base doesn’t.”

Kevin Yearick, Director of Network Services, Grady Health System

Yearick. “IT people may know about other systems, but our user base doesn’t. On the other hand, most people are already familiar with Microsoft, which we believed would certainly make the transition easier.”

BenefitsWhen Grady Health System adopted the services in the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, it modernized its messaging environment and made it easier for its employees to collaborate effectively. The organization also streamlined IT management, supported its IT overhaul, and built a more agile messaging environment while avoiding more than U.S.$100,000 in capital expenses.

Modernized MessagingBy adopting Exchange Online, Grady no longer has to fight to maintain an antiquated messaging environment, and employees can more efficiently manage their email, collaborate with their colleagues, and serve patients. Grady can interoperate its messaging environment seamlessly with the Windows XP operating system and Microsoft Office 2007 productivity software, and it can collaborate more effectively with its partners. And by adding over 1,000 nurses to its messaging environment, Grady has increased communication and collaboration within the largest segment of the organization’s workforce.

“We no longer see complaints that people missed calls because their calendars didn’t convert for the time zones,” says Yearick. “Modern employees just expect their email to work, but that was not an assumption we could support before. Now we can use Exchange Online to deliver email service

that our employees can take for granted. That’s how messaging should work.”

Effective CollaborationNow Grady can deliver consistent access to email and better calendar features that make it easier for its employees to manage their schedules and appointments. People can send attachments with confidence that they will work. Grady can safeguard its employees’ inboxes from spam messages without unnecessarily blocking legitimate business communications, without having to purchase additional hardware or software. And, using Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting, teams collaborating on projects can use instant messaging and web conferencing to stay coordinated.“By providing our employees with a full set of messaging and collaboration capabilities, we have seen a significant increase in efficiency,” says Yearick. “Department leaders regularly tell me how much better the messaging situation is.”

Streamlined IT ManagementThe IT department at Grady no longer has to spend hours every week trying to restore email service. Because the organization has transferred the routine management of its messaging infrastructure to Microsoft Online Services, it can focus its staff resources where it needs them most. The IT staff has made good use of the extra time to further support the hospital’s infrastructure overhaul.

The IT department’s biggest accomplishment has been the deployment of the Grady EMR system. With an upgraded messaging environment, the IT staff could concentrate on helping Grady

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“By providing our employees with a full set of messaging and collaboration capabilities, we have seen a significant increase in efficiency. Department leaders regularly tell me how much better the messaging situation is.”

Kevin Yearick, Director of Network Services, Grady Health System

go from stage one on the U.S. Electronic Medical Records Adoption Model to stage six—higher than 90 percent of hospitals in the United States.

“It has been challenging to deploy an EMR system and many other new and upgraded technologies all at the same time,” says Yearick. “But we’ve been able to support all that in part because we no longer have to dedicate time to the day-to-day processes of messaging.”

High Agility with Reduced InvestmentBy adopting the online services in Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, Grady has built an agile messaging environment that it can expand as it needs to, adding tools or users without having to purchase hardware and software or spend time on installation. For example, to deliver Office Communications Online to new users, the IT department simply used an administrator tool to assign the employees, and they were sending and receiving instant messages that day.

“Vendors develop new solutions every year, but we can use Microsoft Online Services to stay current without repeatedly needing additional capital, software, and maintenance. If a solution turns out to not be right for us, we can easily switch because we didn’t have to make a high initial investment,” says Yearick. “As proof, we have added the capability to deliver voicemail and faxes to email boxes.”

In fact, Yearick says that Grady avoided more than U.S.$100,000 in capital investment by adopting the messaging and collaboration tools from Microsoft Online Services instead of building and managing an on-premises messaging infrastructure.Microsoft Online ServicesMicrosoft Online Services are business-class communication and collaboration solutions delivered as a subscription service and hosted by Microsoft. With these offerings, customers can cost-effectively access the most up-to-date technologies and immediately benefit from streamlined communications, simplified management, and business-class reliability and security features.

For more information, visit:www.microsoft.com/online

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Grady Health System products and services, visit the website at: www.gradyhealth.org

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published May 2011

Software and Services Microsoft Online Services− Microsoft Business Productivity

Online Standard Suite

− Microsoft Exchange Online− Microsoft Office Communications

Online− Microsoft Office Live Meeting