Mecon, located in San Ramon, California, has offered consulting services to hospitals across the United States for over 13 years. As insurance companies gained greater influence over the health care industry during the late 1980s, Mecon recognized the need for hospital information systems (HIS’s) that could help hospitals compete more effectively without sacrificing quality of care. The company began developing and marketing an HIS that enabled hospital units to compare their practices against industry benchmarks and then make adjustments as needed. By using these systems, many Mecon customers have reduced their annual expenses by 10 to 15 percent, saving millions of dollars annually.
At the same time, Mecon sought a high-performance, cost- effective way to deploy business-critical applications to its remote work force nationwide without sacrificing data security.
Presenting problem Mecon supports its customers with a network of consultants, account executives, and field service personnel who need fast, easy, and secure access to information when they are working off-site. Like many companies today, one of the biggest challenges for Mecon is information access for these employees. Until recently, field workers had to use an unreliable, time-consuming remote access system.
The challenge: Deliver secure access to informa-tion to off-site workers.
Drawbacks to the existing remote access system were so severe that people avoided using it. According to one of the senior members of Mecon’s IS department, users dreaded dealing with the remote access system because it took several minutes just to download a 5-MB to 6-MB client file. This lag time severely restricted customer support efforts. Data sent to the field as hard copy wasn’t nearly as up-to-date as online information, but no one had the patience to access the online information.
Prior to implementing the thin-client/server solution using WinFrame in mid-1996, Mecon (as did several companies in the preceding case studies) also evaluated and rejected several remote-control software packages.
Hardware and software The thin-client/server networking environment at Mecon includes:
Mecon deploys proprietary medical products and productivity applications.
Mecon uses WinFrame to deploy its HIS products, including PeerView, Action Point, and Optimis, as well as its office software, such as Lotus’ cc:Mail, to its field employees. WinFrame also provides access to the Internet via Netscape Navigator 3.0.
Solution and results Mecon implemented its thin-client/server solution using WinFrame. The solution provided Mecon employees with quick, efficient, and secure access to a wide range of business-critical applications, regardless of the user’s location or available bandwidth.
Using this solution, Mecon’s sales, marketing, and field service employees obtain client data, access e-mail, and use PeerView, Action Point, and Optimis. Remote workers in search of competitive information or industry news also use WinFrame to access the Internet via Netscape Navigator 3.0.
The thin-client/server solution also gives Mecon’s software developers and system administrators the flexibility to work from home. For software developers, this means fast access to Oracle development tools that reside on the WinFrame server or connection to the Internet to conduct research. For system administrators, it means the ability to upgrade applications easily or to handle network problems during off-peak hours.
Mecon employees find the WinFrame thin-client/server solution extremely easy to use because of the Windows interface, which is ideal for less technical users. Additionally, the company has greatly benefited from WinFrame’s Internet support, since Mecon depends heavily on the Internet as a source of research information. The reliability of the connection between users and WinFrame has also been a big improvement.
Since WinFrame’s implementation, Mecon has increased user productivity significantly because field workers can more easily and quickly access a wide range of information. They use laptops to dial in to the WinFrame server via a frame relay WAN and ac-cess client databases, e-mail, the company’s bulletin boards, or the Internet. They say that WinFrame is so fast that it feels like an actual node on the Mecon network. The field employees can download large client files and receive up-to-the-minute status reports in just a few seconds.
Mecon’s solution has significantly improved productivity.
The WinFrame implementation significantly simplifies system administration and user support. Administrators can now easily and economically deploy new applications and software updates or troubleshoot problems in the field from the WinFrame server. With only two administrators supporting over 150 people, WinFrame’s single-point management has been especially beneficial.
The increased productivity of Mecon’s employees using the thin-client/server solution has enhanced the company’s overall competitiveness. In fact, Mecon sees so much potential in the thin-client/server solution that it has established several business objectives for the future—such as an intranet with Web-enabled applications and human resources information—that will be dependent on these capabilities.