Linda posted on October 27, 2009 10:32
Recently, we received a call from one of our clients who had just purchased two servers and a lot of other equipment from their software vendor. They are getting ready to launch a hosted EMR solution to augment their medical billing service. They wanted to know how quickly we could have the equipment up and running in the data center where there two existing servers are already co-located.
The trouble was that the new servers were pedestal servers. Although this type of server can be placed in the racks typically found in data centers, they are really designed for an office environment where they sit upright on a desk or the floor. Since data centers typically charge by how much rack space is utilized, and since pedestal servers take up two and a half to three times the space of a server designed for a rack, using these servers would have doubled the monthly bill for data center space.
In addition to that issue, they had also sold them an uninterruptible power supply (in case the data center's generators fail, I guess) and a tape drive for backup. It's not clear who they thought was going to rotate the tapes for daily backup.
This situation was a classic case of just deciding what the customer needs and selling it to them. Apparently the sales person never sat down to ask questions about where the servers would be or what the business model was. The servers were also not robust enough to support and environment with multiple doctor's offices storing documents and medical records. Based on work we have done with other doctor's offices, the disk space would likely have been used in less than six months.
After much discussion and a new sales person later, the software company agreed to pick up all of the inappropriate equipment and install their software on servers that we are configuring for them. We were able to propose a solution that replaces their two existing servers with three new servers. The software vendor will be able to install the billing software and the EMR software on one server that will be powerful and spacious enough to meet their needs for more than the next six months.
Since we configured the system using the Intel Modular Server that is only available to Intel Product Dealers, they will also be able to add additional servers at a much lower incremental cost than adding additional pedestal style servers. And while they will have increased costs from the Data Center for a month or so during the transition, once the migration from the old servers is completed, their bill will drop back down to its current level.
If you are considering upgrading your equipment, whether it is related to new software or not, be sure you are getting advice from a reputable IT company that will make sure your best interests are served. If you don't already have a relationship with such a company then talk to more than one company. Ask them to explain why they are making the specific recommendation and listen carefully to their explanation. If you aren't satisfied with their explanation, or if you can't understand it, keep looking until you find a company you are comfortable with.
In this economy, you don't want to be buying a system just because it is the one the IT company wants to sell, or it's the one they are familiar with selling. You want to be sure that it is the best system for your company.