Know-how

McGill University Health Center

Seamless outsourcing to CGI keeps Montreal hospitals humming

Nothing is more mission-critical than a hospital’s information systems—especially those used to identify thousands of patients, order their lab tests, deliver the results, and meet their complex dietary requirements.

Recognizing this fact, the member hospitals of the McGill University Health Centre went looking for someone to help keep their information systems rock-solid while squeezing more out of their tight budgets. Who did they choose? CGI.

The Challenge
Over the years 1991 to 1997, five Montreal hospitals joined forces to create the
McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). With 11,000 employees, over 900 practicing physicians, nearly 1,300 research staff, and a combined budget of nearly CAD $500 million per year, the MUHC is now regarded as one of the greatest centres of excellence in clinical care, research, and teaching in Canada.

Computer systems are a vital part of the MUHC’s operations. But as a publicly funded institution, the MUHC has to watch every penny. Its key IT challenge has therefore been to maintain high system reliability while maximizing cost efficiency. The late 1990s also presented an additional challenge: making a smooth transition to Y2K.

For help in meeting these challenges, the MUHC has turned to CGI, with its proven track record of success in the health care sector.

The Strategy
Early on, the MUHC decided that the best way to contain IT costs while maintaining high reliability would be to outsource all its mainframe and related WAN operations to CGI and write demanding service quality standards into the contract.

Outsourcing contains costs in at least two ways. First, CGI’s Montreal data center has backup power generators, redundant power and telephone feeds, a halon fire-control system, and extensive security. By outsourcing to CGI, the MUHC gets the full benefit of these facilities while sharing their cost with the other CGI clients who use them.

Second, when the MUHC needs experts for an IT project, CGI can assign their own specialists for the project’s duration, so that MUHC does not have to hire them permanently in-house.

All these efficiencies mean that the MUHC can obtain data processing and network maintenance services from CGI at lower cost than the MUHC could achieve in-house. Meanwhile, CGI’s facilities and its contractual commitments to the MUHC ensure bullet-proof 24/7 reliability for the MUHC’s systems.

In addition, when the MUHC needs to enhance its systems to keep pace with evolving technologies, CGI’s people and its modern IT infrastructure greatly facilitate the process. During preparations for Y2K, for example, CGI’s experts helped the MUHC make extensive changes in their IT hardware, networks, system software, and applications. The two partners coordinated their efforts closely, sharing information every step of the way.

The Technology

• Platform: VM/VSE
• Number of users: 7,000
• Systems supported: Patient Index; Admitting/Transfer/Discharge; Medical Records; Order Entry and Results (for lab tests and radiology); HR; Payroll; Accounting and Finance; Decision Support System for case costing
• System service quality: no more than 3 hours non-consecutive non-planned downtime per month

The Results
“An outsourcing agreement is a bit like getting married,” says Mr. Jean Huot, CIO of the MUHC. “The most important thing is to show understanding on both sides.”

Since he became CIO in 1998, Huot has worked to clarify expectations and minimize misunderstandings, and today he says, “I’m highly satisfied with the level of service provided to us and very happy with the attention that we receive.”

As for Y2K, “It was a serious issue for us, but there was a good commitment from everyone, and it all worked out well. I stayed up all night on December 31, 1999 with staff from the MUHC and CGI, watching for any problems. But the only hiccups were a couple of printers that temporarily wouldn’t print.”

Repeat business is the best measure of success. And the MUHC has been so pleased with its outsourcing decision that it has renewed its contract with CGI to the end of 2003. Over the coming years, CGI expects to work closely with the MUHC to help it define and migrate to a new IT infrastructure for what will surely become Canada’s most modern health care facility.