Healthcare Agency Migrates from SAP to Microsoft and HP, Cuts BI Costs in Half

“The cost of the Microsoft BI solution was about half the cost of renewing our SAP product suite, and we gained more capabilities.”

Jonathan Jourdain, Director of Decision Support, Capital & Coast District Health Board

Capital & Coast District Health Board (C&C DHB) wanted more affordable and detailed business intelligence (BI). To achieve this goal, C&C DHBreplaced its previous BI solution with a new one based on the Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse and the HP Business Decision Appliance. In just 12 months, C&C DHBtransformed its BI capabilities,cut software costs by about 50 percent, and improved insight,efficiency, and agility.

Business Needs

Capital & Coast District Health Board funds and delivers healthcare services in the Capital & Coast district and neighboring regions. In 2011, it began implementing Six Sigma projects to improve patient services. To help meet project goals, C&C DHB needed to update its business intelligence solution so that it could give employees more detailed insight, faster, and for less money.

The existing BI solution was based on SAP Business Objects and a 150-gigabyte (GB) data warehouse that ran on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 data management software, virtual servers, and a storage area network (SAN). Hosted and managed by the in-house ICT group, the warehouse stored disparate data from 45 systems, which ran on eight different vendor platforms, using the source-systems’ data structures and definitions. “Prior to our current data warehouse, previous attempts were basically a holding place for data,” explains Jonathan Jourdain, Director of Decision Support at C&C DHB. “We needed to complete a solution that could translate all of that complexity into something meaningful for administrators, clinicians, and executives.”

The agency also needed to boost efficiency and cost savings. For example, rather than relying on email and different repositories to share reports, staff wanted a single location to instantly access and manage BI. In addition, developers needed to speed up reporting processes without jeopardizing the performance of clinical systems that also ran on the SAN. The agency also sought to cut costs. Jourdain explains, “Just renewing the licenses for our SAP BI solution would exceed our scarce group capital budget twice over.”

C&C DHB began evaluating BI solutions that could increase the speed and detail of BI, and reduce expenses. The new solution also had to be easy to use and manage.

Solution

C&C DHB evaluated BI technologies from SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, ultimately choosing an integrated solution based on the Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse and the HP Business Decision Appliance. Both are end-to-end solutions with hardware, software, and support. The Fast Track Data Warehouse is preconfigured and pretested. The HP Business Decision Appliance includes a complete BI platform based on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. “The Fast Track Data Warehouse and the HP Business Decision Appliance are affordable, easy to implement, and deliver predictable, out-of-the-box performance,” says Brian Lee, BI Technical lead at C&C DHB.

IT personnel from Decision Support at C&C DHB(which is separate from ICT) installed the Fast Track Data Warehouse and HP Business Decision Appliance. The data warehouse runs on the Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise operating system, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, an HP ProLiant DL380 G6 server computer, and an HP Storage P2000 G3MSA Array System. The HP appliance runs on one HP ProLiant DL360 G7 server with internal storage.

The IT employees from Decision Support used SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services to create online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes. They also migrated extract, transform, and load processes from SAP to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services. In addition, they created a portal with SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise to facilitate collaboration and content management. They also created reports, dashboards, and key performance indicators with PerformancePoint Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services.

Benefits

C&C DHBhas transformed its BI capabilities in just 12 months, cut BI costs by about 50 percent, andimproved efficiency, agility, and services.

Transformed BI in Just 12 Months

C&C DHBhas rapidly overcome its BI challenges. “In just 12 months, we migrated from SAP to Microsoft and HP, consolidated data and definitions from 45 systems, and built all new BI components,” says Jourdain. “This was done by a small team while maintaining existing services.”

Cut BI Costs by About 50 Percent

C&C DHB has reduced expenses. “The cost of the Microsoft BI solution was about half the cost of renewing our SAP product suite, and we gained more capabilities,” says Jourdain. “We also set up our new production environment for the same amount of money that predecessors spent several years ago on consultants who gathered BI concepts and plans but didn’t produce a product fit for production.”

Increases Efficiency and Insight

Today, employees can instantly access detailed BI which speeds workflow. In the near future, employees will have even more BI capabilities. “The Microsoft BI solution includes Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel, which is intuitive so that more users can build the presentations that they need faster,” says Jourdain. “Add to this the advanced analytical tools in SQL Server Analysis Services, and you have a powerful BI solution for all users.”

IT personnel in Decision Support are also more efficient because the group manages its own solution. Jourdain says, “We now have complete control over BI because it runs on the Fast Track Data Warehouse and HP Business Decision Appliance instead of the SAN.” Lee adds, “We have more confidence in the Microsoft BI solution because there are fewer interoperability issues and we have lot more time to work on other projects.”

Improves Patient Care and Agility

Today, C&C DHB can easily support new requirements and increase collaboration with regional peer organizations. “By delivering BI on the Microsoft platform, we can meet clinician’s requirements—where clinical software vendors have not—and we can support Six Sigma initiatives,” says Jourdain. “In addition, clinicians and quality leaders can use the Microsoft BI tools to reliably access and monitor clinical process improvement initiatives that directly improve patient care.”