Experienced in EHR Hosting
With eight clinical locations, a state-of-the-art sleep lab, and an administrative facility, The Neurology Center is the premier provider of neurological services in the Washington DC metro area with about 100 employees. Several of their doctors are represented in the listing of Top Doctors in “Washingtonian Magazine.”
Before partnering with Netgain, The Neurology Center owned their IT equipment and rented space in a data center to store their servers. They used a Managed Services company who was very competent in managing the servers, but were less familiar with managing specific applications they used, most notably their EHR, Centricity.
Challenges
Maintaining a virtual environment in a rented space brought challenges to The Neurology Center. With the daily volume of clients their facilities serve, their IT challenges began to mount. The Neurology Center’s primary challenges included:
- Managed Services vendor with little Centricity experience
- Poor performance during upgrades and updates
- No redundant connectivity, causing outages
- IT equipment reaching its end of life
Solution
To continue providing their patients convenient, state-of-the-art services, The Neurology Center needed to find a better solution for their IT environment. With the need for more reliable performance and an IT infrastructure that was needing a very expensive capital expenditure investment, The Neurology Center had a vision of moving their IT to the cloud. With the high costs to replace their IT infrastructure, cloud hosting made the most sense.
The Neurology Center was seeking a hosting provider that would provide the best solution for their needs. They found IT service providers who offered a virtual environment and Managed Services but they struggled to find a provider that could take care of their entire IT environment. Anne Baccich, CEO of The Neurology Group, is part of a CEO group of several large neurology centers across the country. Baccich looked to the group for recommended hosting providers and learned about Netgain. She thought what Netgain offered was unique.
The performance of Centricity and the support of Centricity during upgrades and updates was especially concerning to Brian Markley, Director of Technical Services. Markley was eager to visit Netgain and see what they had to offer.
“I had the opportunity to meet Netgain team members and see the facility; I was very impressed. Everything was very clean and organized,” Markley said.
After the visit, The Neurology Center selected Netgain as their hosting provider, and the process of moving to Netgain went smoothly. Netgain was able to create a new environment and migrate Centricity without any downtime. To make the process even more efficient, Netgain provided the training needed for the users.
“The migration of our computer operations to the Netgain environment was expertly managed with minimal disruption of service,” Markley said.
Results
Specialized Healthcare Experts
Netgain has been serving healthcare clients for 25+ years and knows how to manage and host EHR software. Netgain’s experienced team of certified, HIPAA-adherent professionals provided the training necessary to make switching to the cloud an easy transition for The Neurology Center. Netgain’s specialized Support teams have extensive knowledge and training on specific EHR software to ensure The Neurology Center team is supported when technical questions arise regarding Centricity.
Increased Reliability
Since moving to Netgain, The Neurology Center has experienced increased uptime and reliability of their network. The Neurology Center is no longer having issues with downtime during Centricity updates and upgrades, as they were in the past.
“The professionalism and expertise that Netgain brings to the management of our computer operations gives us confidence that systems will be available when we need them. Netgain does things right and it comes out in the end in terms of reliability and performance” Markley said.
Access to Support Team
Netgain’s dedicated support team has resolved many of the challenges The Neurology Center experienced with their previous Managed Services provider.
“The support team has been very helpful, responsive, and service-oriented. We’re able to be more efficient with our time because we have Netgain to support us,” Markley said.
Stabilize Costs
Instead of purchasing new equipment that would have resulted in a high capital expenditure, The Neurology Center is able to switch to a predictable monthly fee schedule for the services they use. They also enjoy the flexibility to make real-time adjustments to their IT environment when a need arises.