BI and the Chicken Pot Pie - Everyday Recipes for Business Intelligence and Performance Improvement

IT is competing with easier to implement and license Software as a Service (SaaS) applications that are appealing to the Line of Business focused on solving a business problem. IT in this scenario can become a service provider – an advocate who is proactively delivering value regardless of whether an application is in-house or hosted, ongoing or project specific.

By building a service provider approach, IT can provide the right technologies that fit to the business task and align to a technology strategy.
The potential result is an IT organization that makes the business rock stars.

Challenges to this approach include the need to address more and better automation that virtualization will bubble up to the surface, application and end user performance monitoring, billing and chargeback and the need for carrier-grade scalability.

Customer panelist, Dan Stross CIO of Genesys Regional Medical Center, reinforced Chalmer’s points. Stross’ organization was having a difficult time with physician satisfaction with their healthcare informatics system. What they found once they dove into the project was that the time to log into the system, about 10 seconds every time, was a primary barrier to improved satisfaction along with the inability to save a session.

Through incorporating a testing strategy, Stross’ team identified the most vocal physicians and included them in a test of a virtualization project where kiosks throughout the hospital driven via thin client devices provided a more seamless experience. Processing of the sessions and management took place in the cloud environment for the test group.

The test group of physicians were able to use a virtualized back end for that leverages secure badges and single sign-on to reduce log-in time and add features. Physicians can suspend a session and pick it up at any other kiosk in the hospital system via a simple command or use of their security badge. One physician saved 2 hours a day – and because the physicians championed the project it drove acceptance. IT helped the physician rock stars "rock".

A great example of not only virtualization driving a positive change but two of the best practices we recommend – 1) find a project that has immediate impact and 2) identify the audience that cares the most or has the most influence and build advocacy.

Hope you are enjoying my recaps. I have one more today. I am working on my wrap up of a very interesting mobile applications panel. Since I’m being fueled by a pastry rich lunch – cannoli and a cream puff I bought from Mike’s Pastry in the North End – I bet it will be a heck of a blog post