INTELLICURE’S NEW HOSTED MODEL PROVIDES MANY ADVANTAGES FOR MOST WOUND AND HYPERBARIC CENTERS
Brett Thomson, CIO

Many facilities cannot afford or maintain the costs of our enterprise client server model or want the flexibility to work from any location. By spreading costs over many customers, Intellicure can better afford to invest in the infrastructure required to support higher levels of software reliability than a clinic or hospital can achieve on its own. Our network is collocated in an Internet data center that satisfies even the most stringent requirements of the healthcare and financial industries. Moreover, our facility provides 24/7 physical security, biometric identification systems, redundant Internet backbones, electrical generators and air conditioners, fire suppression systems, and other measures all designed to keep Intellicure continually up and running.

What types of savings are realized with the hosted model?
Since your clinic does not need to buy any servers, that avoids the expense of buying them. If you did decide to go it alone, in terms of requirements, you would need least one SQL server at a minimum, and a file share. A basic SQL server will cost approximately $4,000 for the hardware, approximately $1,200 for the Windows Server 2003 plus and $200 per 5 users, approximately $6,000-$23,000 per processor for the SQL Server or $8,000 and $200 dollars per user. Believe me when I tell you there are 50 choices for each license and they all have their own break-even points. In my simple example running in the recommended configuration, it takes 352 users to break even with the pricing that we are providing, which would actually be higher because my simple model does not account for the fact that if all the users were remote users, you would need additional terminal server boxes for approximately every 40 users depending on load. The example listed in the table below is for 10 users.

Onsite costs do not necessarily reflect the added benefits of offsite backup, tape archiving, redundant power, redundant air conditioning, physical security, and so forth.

Intellicure maintains all of the servers with the latest software updates, virus scanners, system backups, and all the licenses for terminal services, as well as computer access licenses for Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Word. Hospitals may provide these services, but charge back based upon the portion of the IT staff required to maintain the services.

The IntelliTrak Hosted System doesn't have any setup time and is supported by our technicians who can easily remote assist you anytime without a lot of wasted time connecting through the hospital firewall or getting a hospital administrator to change a permission that is preventing the system from working. Everything simply works better when Intellicure can control the permissions users need to use the system. For example, if a new user needs to be added it is a simple call or email to Intellicure to add a new user with the proper permissions. The alternative is to have the manager add the user in the Intellicure database, which then forces an error code from Intellicure, which says that the new user does not have permission to use file resources. The manager has to tell Intellicure there is a problem and Intellicure replies indicating that it does not have control over the active directory, and will need to call the hospital IT administrator. This assumes that the IT administrator has the power to assist and the time to change permissions for a single user, which may not be the case.

Using the hosted model, you can even choose the level of integration you want with your hospital system using our Hosted HL7* services:

• If you want hospital registrations to be logged into the Intellicure system automatically by using HL7 ADT messages, you can register your patients in the hospital’s system and automatically have the information in Intellicure.

• If you want your records in your hospital information system by using a document feed utilizing HL7 messaging, Intellicure can log documents into the hospital information system.

• If you want HL7 lab feeds for orders or for results, Intellicure can provide support for your lab-feed needs.

• If you want Intellicure billing to automatically populate your patient accounting software, you can obtain an HL7 or X12 billing feed.

• If you want your physician billing to be handled automatically by the new Intellicure billing and practice management services, call now to get details if you are interested.

* Hosted HL7 services require a site-to-site VPN connection.

Note: Don’t despair if you still want our Intellicure Enterprise onsite software and are a larger enterprise client with extensive infrastructure; we can work with you to set up a local client server model. We do charge more for this enterprise service but if you feel the need for this level of control we are willing to support your requirements.