Eagles Landing Family Practice is a full-service primary care practice with nine locations throughout Henry, Butts and Rockdale County Georgia. Services are offered seven days per week helping the practice to achieve its mission of “providing care at your convenience.” Efficiently supporting the healthcare needs of 250,000 patients annually requires the Eagles Landing staff to work in accordance to streamlined workflow processes. These processes are defined and managed within the organization’s practice management system which is used to centralize financial operations, improve patient scheduling, and accelerate revenue collections. In spring of 2013 the leadership team at Eagles Landing made the decision to implement a new electronic health record (EHR) system to further its efforts to improve patient care and staff efficiency.
The Challenge: Reliable IT Infrastructure for Successful EHR Implementation
“Effectively and proactively managing the health of our patients is important to us,” explains Nick Williams, CFO of Eagles Landing. “We made the decision to implement a new EHR platform to help us better engage with our patients which we knew would make a sizeable impact not just to the way we serve them, but in their overall health as well.”
In order for any software package to perform at its best, it must be installed on a computer network that is scalable, reliable, and secure. “It was important to us to make sure that the solution we chose worked reliably and optimally,” said Nick. “Our EHR vendor referred us to Kalleo to optimize our network infrastructure in preparation of the implementation of the new EHR.”
Kalleo’s first project was a thorough review of Eagles Landing’s existing infrastructure including the communication circuits that feed data to and from the practice’s nine offices. Kalleo immediately recognized the communications network that was identified to support the new EHR platform was inadequate. Adjustments were made which ensured the EHR implementation was successful.
The Solution: Streamlined Telecommunications Network
Following the EHR project, Kalleo’s Jeremy Shelbourne continued to work with Eagles Landing to identify areas of the network that could be improved. “My mind kept returning to the communications infrastructure and the antiquated data protocols we’d reviewed following the initial EHR project,” explains Jeremy. “The EHR project granted me the opportunity to get very familiar with the network infrastructure at Eagles Landing. The voice and data services the practice was paying for seemed excessive. I proposed to Nick that we complete a thorough audit of their voice and data service contract.”
When the audit was complete, Kalleo discovered the practice was paying for two antiquated services that were long past due for an upgrade. These services were consolidated and replaced by a single dedicated internet access network used to support the EHR. Today a single dedicated service delivers voice and data at each of the nine Eagles Landing locations.
The Result: 70% Annual Telecommunication Cost Savings
“The depth of Kalleo’s expertise has already saved our company thousands of dollars,” says Nick. “The work their team performed to streamline our telecommunications platform allowed us to eliminate two services we no longer needed. Our voice and data expenses have been cut by 70% per month – tens of thousands of dollars each year – as a result of Kalleo’s expertise!”
Today Kalleo provides support for all of Eagles Landing’s IT infrastructure. The Kalleo team proactively manages all servers by monitoring thousands of distinct events and metrics 24 hours a day in order to discover problems as they happen, and in some cases even before they occur. Help desk support is provided to all staff members. Disaster recovery services protect Eagles Landing’s business data from disaster. Quarterly business reviews keep IT in line with the business goals of the practice.
“The technologies in use here at Eagles Landing Family Practice were specifically chosen to ensure our staff is able to provide accurate and timely care for our patients. We cannot achieve that goal if those tools are not working reliably. Kalleo provides us with the stable infrastructure required to help us achieve our business and patient objectives,” concludes Nick.
