Keeping up with outdated technology can be a major obstacle for any company, taking away valuable time, funds, and resources from their main objectives. In the healthcare industry, this can have particularly severe consequences. Every dollar spent on maintaining legacy technology is a dollar that could have been used to directly benefit patients and improve patient care.
Simplifying IT became a crucial strategy for a well-known and respected academic hospital as it strived to enhance patient care by better-managing patient and other vital data, streamlining operations, and enhancing the work environment for staff members.
The hospital had been using a mainframe platform for its data and applications for many years, however, as the cost of annual maintenance reached nearly $1 million and the availability of skilled mainframe personnel decreased due to retirement and a lack of expertise in the market, it became apparent that a change was needed.
The organization collaborated with Cloudseed to identify valuable assets within the mainframe environment and devise a plan to extract them, with the goal of overhauling its data and applications landscape, cutting expenses, and addressing the dwindling supply of mainframe specialists.
The organization had already begun utilizing cloud technology for some of its enterprise needs and had established a Microsoft Azure agreement. As it sought to simplify IT and improve its business processes, it became clear that utilizing cloud technology for an enterprise-level pilot project would be the best choice. This was due to the benefits of the cloud, such as a lower total cost of ownership, scalability, and the ability to rapidly innovate.
However, as a large amount of data and applications still reside on the mainframe, transitioning to a cloud-based organization would require significant effort in assessing resources and creating a plan of action. The hospital utilized the expertise of mainframe and healthcare experts to conduct a comprehensive examination of all mainframe assets, including evaluating their worth and determining retention strategies.
An examination revealed that there were 45 mainframe applications and 34 databases, the majority of which were either already retired or nearing the end of their lifespan. Despite the shift towards cloud technology, the company was still required to keep data for the majority of these applications due to strict data retention guidelines.
Cloudseed and the organization worked together to create a detailed roadmap for retiring each mainframe asset while ensuring compliance with retention policies and establishing a plan for the future of each asset in the cloud. As a result of the migration, data is now easily accessible for regulatory and reporting purposes and can be integrated with any cloud-based applications that require it. Additionally, the shift to the cloud resulted in significant cost savings, with expenses reduced by almost 95%.
By utilizing its expertise in the industry and experience in cloud transformation, Cloudseed successfully assisted in the move of mainframe data and archives to the cloud. They also created Tableau reports to replicate inquiry-only screens from mainframe applications and implemented RPA to download documents that needed to be preserved in their original format. With the complete implementation of cloud technology, the organization is now able to redirect its resources towards initiatives that positively impact the community, without being constrained by expensive mainframe infrastructure or the shortage of mainframe specialists.
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