Case One: Hackensack University Medical Center Consolidates Systems for Fast

Information Access

Summary 
The Hackensack University Medical of New Jersey had adopted digital technologies for
diagnostic screening which ironically makes up only a small percentage of the digital records the
hospital maintains. The majority of the hospital digital records come from x-rays, ultrasounds,
images of prescriptions, tests results, patient medical history, billing and such. As result the
hospital’s IS had grown to include around 300 servers from vendors and waiting more than two
minutes to retrieve x-rays and medical data that were often incomplete. In hospitals with busy
ER operations, the current IS could result in lost lives due to incomplete or lack of data from
their IS. 
Concluding that this could not go on any longer, the director of information technology,
Ed Martinez and his team set out to develop new system capable of managing and delivering
the huge data the hospital kept. They found their solution in a new technology from Hewlett-
Packard in the form of a storage area network technology that used high-speed special-purpose
network to connect different data storage devices with the appropriate data servers. This meant
that Hackensack University Medical would be treating its diverse system as one through a
single interface. The whole implementation including the revamp of their entire computing
infrastructure, Hackensack invested $60 million.
Hackensack now no has to wait two minutes for x-rays and has dramatically improved
their daily operations with their administrators having more to time on staff management rather
than storage administration tasks.

What lessons can be learned from Hackensack Medical Center’s experience with going
digital?
From Hackensack Medical Center’s experience with going digital, you can see that with going
digital or upgrading your equipments, it is important to make sure that the system that is being
used can keep up and efficiently support and work with the advancements. If not the data that is
being stored and is expected to aid and improve the company or hospital’s operations may not
be fully available because the system is capable or compatible enough to do so. In such cases,
the operations of the company may become even worse because the gathered data didn’t
become an information that is valuable to it.

What led to the hospital’s predicament in dealing with technical complexity?

The hospital’s predicament in dealing with technical complexity came from their information
system which had to include 300 servers from many vendors. As the hospital moved on to
digital technology the information that was contained in the system wasn’t organized effectively
and with multiple different servers, it led to their technical complexity

What do you think are some keys to avoiding technical complexity in large systems such
as Hackensack Medical Center’s?
In my opinion to avoid technical complexity in large systems such as Hackensack Medical
Center’s having routine check, analyzation and updates to the system is important. Having the
system as advanced or flexible as rest of the company’s or hospital’s technology would avoid
having complexity because the system is well connected and compatible with each other,
servers and to other subsidiaries.
 
How might standardization and flexibility affect a system’s ability to evolve over time
without becoming overly complex?
Having flexibility and standardizing a system can keep the running of the system less
complicated as it evolves over time. Standardizing would mean that there is already a set
standard or way to fix and improve the system meaning that the system is less complicated and
taxing for the operators to manage, upgrade or improve the system.