Collaboration Technology: Project report

COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY

SIEMENS HEALTHCARE

INTERNATIONAL

SUBMITTED BY GROUP 2DEEPIKA MANCHANDA

RAMA SHUKLASAURABH CHAUTRVEDI

SRIDHAR VIJAYARAMANSUDEEP MEHROTRA

TOM GEORGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. PRIMARY AREA OF BUSINESS

3. ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION

4. COLLABORATIVE TOOLS USED (INCLUDING OBJECTIVES)

5. IMPACT ANALYSIS

6. CONCLUSION

7. REFERENCES

introduction

Siemens Healthcare (formerly Siemens Medical Solutions, formerly Siemens Medical Systems, internally within Siemens known as "Med") is a supplier to the healthcare industry, and is headquartered in Erlangen, Germany. Prior to being acquired by Siemens in 2000, the company was known as Shared Medical Systems Corporation and traded on the New York Stock Exhange as "SMS". Currently, its U.S. division, Siemens Healthcare USA, Inc., is a Delaware corporation, with headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania. The Ultrasound Group is located in Issaquah, Washington.The company dates its early beginnings to 24 May 1877 to a small family business in Erlangen, co-founded by Ernst Werner von Siemens. The name Siemens Medical Solutions was adopted in 2001, and the change to Siemens Healthcare is part of a reorganization underway in 2008.President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Siemens Healthcare USA, Inc., is Hermann Requardt.Globally it has 49,000 employees, most of them in Germany (comparing to 46,000 at GE Healthcare and 33,000 at Philips Healthcare) and 17.2 billion US-$ sales in 2007 (16.997 billion US-$ for GE).Major competitors of Siemens Healthcare are GE Healthcare, Philips, Toshiba, Carestream Health and SAP Healthcare

primary area of businessSiemens Healthcare Diagnostics is the largest clinical diagnostics company in the world, serving a critical role in the health care continuum. Siemens offer products and services designed for efficient delivery of patient test results used for diagnosing medical conditions, monitoring patient therapy and providing quality health care.

Built on a rich history of innovation from Diagnostic Products Corporation, Bayer HealthCare Diagnostics and Dade Behring, Siemens offer comprehensive solutions designed to improve clinical outcomes, streamline workflow and enhance the operational efficiency of clinical laboratories.

Their broad portfolio of innovative products include a variety of diagnostic systems—integrated chemistry, immunoassay, routine chemistry, automation, hematology, hemostasis, microbiology, diabetes, urinalysis, blood gas monitoring and molecular testing. They also have dedicated professionals that are committed to meet the needs of our customers by providing high-quality products and highly-responsive service and support.

Different products by siemens in integrated healthcare solutions

Brief product categories

Infrastructure and IT

Hearing Instruments

Laboratory diagnostics

Medical Imaging

-Building Technologies

-BestSound Hearing Aids

-Core laboratory -Angiograpgy

-Communication and IT Infrastructure

-Diagnostics IT -Computed Tomography

-Diagnostics IT -Disease States and Conditions

-Fluroscopy

-Green+ Hospitals -Molecular Diagnostics

-Magnetic Resonance

-Hospital IT -Point of Care Equipment

-Mammography

-Integrated Care -Medical Imaging IT

-Medical Imaging -Molecular Imaging

-Radiography

-Surgical C- arms and Navigation

-Ultrasound

Therapy System Accessories and OEM Equipment

Refurbished Systems

Healthcare Services

-Electrophysiology

-Healthcare Lighting

-Laboratory Diagnostics

-Financial Services

-Particle Therapy -Medical Imaging Accessories Catalog

-Medical Imaging and Therapy Systems

-Healthcare Consulting

-Radiation Oncology

-OEM Equipment -Hearing Instruments Services

-Urology Systems -Laboratory Diagnostic Services

-Medical Imaging and Therapy Services

-Public Private Partnership

-Turnkey Solutions

Organization Description

Global Presence

Collaborative tools used (the chapter

includes objectives as well)

1.Siemens Medical Solutions Deploys Verizon Business Conferencing Solutions

Key Business Challenges

In the fast-moving world of healthcare technology and imaging, Siemens Medical Solutions conducts recurring training sessions for its staff to stay up to speed on the latest software developments and imaging advancements. With a diverse global workforce, it was very difficult from a time, location and cost perspective to get employees—located everywhere from London to Frankfurt to Kansas City—to a central training location.In addition to training its staff, Siemens Medical needed a way to communicate software upgrades and technology changes to its clients in a fast, efficient and cost-effective manner. It was clear that Siemens Medical needed a more streamlined, organized approach to communicate to a global employee and client base.

The Solution

Siemens Medical looked to the advantages of collaboration technologies to address its communications needs. Collaboration is a key driver of business performance, according to “Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance,” a study conducted in 2006 by Frost & Sullivan and sponsored by Verizon Business and Microsoft Corp. The study—which defined collaboration as an interaction between culture and technology such as audio and net conferencing, e-mail and instant messaging—also found that professionals around the world see their collaborative efforts as highly productive and believe that collaboration through communications technologies can provide a competitive advantage.

To meet its goals, Siemens Medical identified several key criteria a conferencing and collaboration solution would need to meet, including scalability, flexibility, ease of use, low cost and easy billing.

Verizon Business Conferencing Solutions met the criteria. Verizon Business, through its expansive global network, is a leading provider of conferencing and collaboration services, enabling organizations to conveniently and effectively collaborate, virtually anytime, anywhere, and helping them improve response time and productivity, without the costs associated with business travel.

Using Verizon Businessʼs web conferencing services, known as Verizon Net Conference, and audioconferencing, Siemens Medical is able to train employees and clients on new software upgrades,allowing participants to ask questions and interact directly with instructors. The web conferences take place in a secure, encrypted and access-code-protected environment, and all it takes for Siemens Medical employees and clients to participate in the courses is a PC with an Internet browser and a phone. For those unable to attend live, Siemens Medical is able to provide a recorded Net Replay, available on its website, with instructions and responses to frequently asked questions.

In addition, Verizon Business audio conferencing provides Siemens Medical with the ability to handle everything from small, impromptu meetings to global corporate events. Leveraging the expansive Verizon Business global IP network and international call centers, Siemens Medical receives a high-quality, cost-effective means of collaborating around the world with conference calls routed through local access points. Additionally, Siemens is able to collaborate more quickly and manage its conferencing structure more efficiently, while taking advantage of advanced administrative features such as Event Registration, operator-assisted calls for larger audiences and recording capabilities.

Verizon Business provides Siemens Medical with an all-in-one offering, combining connection and service fees. In addition to providing Siemens Medical with Verizon Business Conferencing Solutions, Verizon Business also provides fully managed MPLS Services to Siemens business units around the world. Verizon Private IP supports the Siemens corporate network, the communications link between various global business units that carries all of the companyʼs business-critical applications as well as voice-over-IP (VoIP), SAP and e-mail applications. By unifying its enterprise locations on a single communications infrastructure, Siemens benefits from flexible and efficient voice and data communications.

2. Reduction of Human error through integrated Automation anywhere

Challenge

Reducing human error arising out of manual, repetitive and time consuming setting up of parameters by biostatisticians.

Solution

Automation Anywhereʼs experts provided an end-to-end solution, setting up parameters to automate Siemensʼ entire analysis process. Using the Visualizer and other tools in Automation Anywhere, Siemensʼ Biostatisticians are able to gather data, generate reports automatically and transfer them to Excel for analysis.

Issue

Siemens Healthcare collects time sensitive and detailed data on DNA and other genetic material using a software (MxPro) that is integrated with a QPCR (Quantitative polymerase chain reaction) instrument. This data is analyzed and used in diagnostics solutions that provide more effective ways to assist in the diagnosis, monitoring and management of disease.

MxPro provides the ability to analyze this raw data. Genetic analysis, by nature requires detailed, multiple option reports. The software provides a plethora of settings that can be adjusted manually for every type of report or analysis required. Setting up of analysis parameters was time-consuming, repetitive in nature and error-prone. For example, certain analysis required specifying an amplification based threshold manually. While doing so, if the lower and upper range data was not consistent between different runs, it produces erroneous data, which in the biotech/ medical field is unacceptable. Also, errors could only be identified once the report was generated requiring statisticians to re-work the entire analysis.

Moreover, there would be an increased cost of both human resource and time in rectifying settings and reanalyzing data. Siemens Healthcare was looking for a way to eliminate potential manual errors and reduce costs.

Siemens decided to automate the running of these reports in an effort to reduce the time consumed and decrease the re-analysis of data occurring as a result of manual error. Their requirements were that the software be easy to use, easy to edit and most importantly reliable as that was the key reason to implement such a solution.

In summary

Siemens Healthcare needed a solution to deal with erroneous results, manual errors, increased time consumption and costs in order to be more effective.

Solutions

Siemens chose Automation Anywhere to automate the process of setting up analysis parameters. Automation Anywhere experts helped them define the required parameters and provided an end-to-end solution.

Working from a higher level, Automation Anywhere experts first mapped out the complete requirements. All data collected from the instrument was stored in a data file. Each file is taken and analyzed with a certain set of parameters to be decided by the statisticians. The results are then transferred to Excel and certain other reports are generated on the data collectively.

Using Automation Anywhereʼs SMART Automation Technology, experts automated the entry of specifications and made 7 different types of reports. The entire task required data from 28 screens, over 90 controls, over 250 keystrokes and 15 mouse clicks. The master task would take data from the data file one entry at a time, analyze it and transfer the results to Excel. Biostatisticians using the automated tasks could easily “see” the task step by step using the powerful Visualize tool in Automation Anywhere. It allowed for quick editing if required and troubleshooting data-driven problems if and when they arose.

3.Siemens Medical Solutions Streamlines Product Information for Customer Service using Astoria Software

The Challenge

Global markets demand high quality information Siemens Medical Solutions sought assistance to improve its product documentation and customer service operations. Siemens Medical Solutions has delivered over 190,000 individual product manuals — each year publishing 2,200 technical documents, over 100,000 printed pages, and distributing this information in print and thousands of CDʼs.To address its various geographies, it translates 15,000documents per year, publishing in up to 18 languages.To support this level of content development, management,localization and distribution, Siemens Medical Solutions utilizes 220 technical authors, a wide range of internal and external globalization services, and the efforts of its 4,000 customer service engineers (CSEs).

Even with this internal infrastructure, Siemens Medical Solutions had five critical challenges to address:

Reduce the time necessary to find correct product technical information for CSEs and end-usercustomers.

Many healthcare customers use multiple Siemens Medical Solutions products at a single site. Differences in the format and content of the supporting technical information across their product offerings made it challenging to find specific user operation or maintenance information quickly and easily.

Improve access to critical product technical information for over 4,000 CSEs worldwide.

The companyʼs army of CSEs service all of the companyʼs products in the field, across product lines. Itʼs not unusual for one CSE to work on magnetic resonance, nuclear medicine, computed tomography, and ultrasound — so consistent, up-to-date and accurateproduct information is crucial.

Meet applicable regulatory standards worldwide.

Compliance is a growing requirement with new regulations regularly emerging from European and US agencies. Additionally, healthcare organizations strapped with financial burdens have become increasingly wary of any inefficiencies and unexpected costs.

Streamline content update, localization, and delivery of product technical information for faster time-to-market, while increasing accuracy.

Because Siemens Medical Solutions products typically have long life cycles, there are frequent customer demands for updated maintenance and repair information.

Reduce costs of product information production and delivery.

Product information was delivered in a variety of ways, though most of it was through printed manuals, which are bulky and difficult to keep current. These factors had a direct impact on infrastructure and costs. The writing staff had expanded to accommodate manual development for up to 120 countries. The cost of maintaining the existing content management system spiraled upward in the face of these issues and drove the need for change. Siemens Medical Solutionsʼ goal was two-pronged: to make sure customers knew how to use their products properly and effectively, and enable its CSEs to quickly repair the equipment. To achieve this, they would need to more quickly deliver high-quality product and service information to their global customers and CSEs.

The Solution

Common platform for global delivery of consistent content

Working together to meet Siemens Medical Solutionsʼ needs, Astoria Software, SDL International and TANNER AG provided a complete global information management solution. Initially, TANNER, a systems integrator specializing in print and publishing systems, assessed the situation for Siemens Medical Solutions and designed an overall architecture and information management process that:

-Separated content from layout and structure-Provided a functional extension to globalization capabilities-Enabled content component reuse on a global basis-Empowered the non-publishing professionals to easily author, contribute and assemble information based on key topics-Established output-independent processes for publishing to a wide range of media

The result was a common software platform built upon eXtensible Markup Language (XML), an industry information standard for rapid communication across disparate documents and formats. The core of this platform were products from Astoria Software and SDL. Astoriaʼs rich XML content management solutions manage business-critical information for organizations with products that have long lifecycles that require frequent product information updates. Astoria manages content components at the smallest element level delivering flexibility to easily manage, update, and reuse it throughout other documents, while maximizing content accuracy. Siemens Medical Solutions used the Astoria XML Content Management Platform to facilitate easier content creation and updates. The system managed, stored, tracked content, initiated review and approval workflows as the content was developed. Astoria is integrated with Adobe FrameMaker to provide a standard layout across all documents and publishing formats.

SDL is the worldʼs leading provider of global information management solutions and helps multinational organizations improve the quality and accelerate the delivery of multi-lingual content to global markets. SDL TRADOS Translation Memory was used to manage the consistent development and delivery of global content with local nuances. SDL established a cache of approved localizations, within the Astoria repository, which prevented duplicate localization efforts. SDL MultiTerm Terminology Management also provided a framework of terms in the source and destination languages that confirmed accurate and appropriate words and phrases to describe particular medical products. To improve operations, Siemens Medical Solutions used SDL statistics and reporting to monitor localization operations that were outsourced as well as those performed in house.TANNER integrated these technologies into a single XML-based architecture that spanned the Siemens Medical Solutions global information supply chain.

Impact Analysis1.Verizon Business Conferencing Solutions

Results and Next Steps

By using Verizon Business Conferencing Solutions, Siemens Medical is able to make its communications more dynamic and productive, keep employees and clients current on the latest imaging technologies and software upgrades, and limit the expense and downtime associated with business travel.

“This service gets high-quality information out to our people in a timely fashion, significantly reducing the time and cost necessary for traveling, and allowing us to concentrate on our core business—and our customers,”said Paul Dow, Solution Implementation Education Services Specialist for Siemens Medical Solutions.

2.Automation Anywhere

Siemens Healthcare realizes several benefits by automating their reports and analysis processes using Automation Anywhere:

1. Quick deployment of automated solutions.2. Accurate report generation.3. Negligent manual intervention.4. Reduce time taken in generating reports.5. Cost and resource savings due to better efficiencies.6. Better leverage of state-of –the-art instruments and analysis software.7. Biostatistians are able to easily monitor, edit or create their reporting requirements.

Siemens continues to use Automation Anywhere on an on-going basis.

3.Astoria Software

Global information management dramatically improves customer satisfaction and service The new information management and publishing system from Astoria and SDL enabled Siemens Medical Solutions to achieve new milestones:

Improved customer service and satisfaction.CSEs had better access to service documentation in the local language, viewed the latest updates, required less product training and were more eager to read materials. They responded faster to customer requirements and medical device service issues on a real-time basis. as evidenced by improvements in mean time to repair and first time fix rate.

Attained worldwide consistency and accuracy in local language documentation.

Customers were more knowledgeable about the medical products, more proficient in overall usage, and often conducted first level of troubleshooting. This improvement was largely due to the accuracy and precision of the information that was localized with regional nuance.Together, Astoria and SDL created a continuum of approved content — passages and terms for the source and all target languages — that was available for reuse globally, and ranged from documents to components to localization units to individual terms. In this way, the new architecture ensured that globalized content accurately conveyed the information and messages as originally intended.

Improved operational efficiency.

Siemens Medical Solutions now delivers over 2,200 documents annually in up to 22 languages, delivered to the web, CD and other media. Going digital and standardizing on XML enabled the company to move from one publication issued every six months to a schedule of weekly updates.

Reduced costs and resource usage.

Siemens Medical Solutions migrated its paper manuals to a variety of digital media, reducing its printed manuals by 90%. Content reuse yielded savings of 30% on localization. Overall, Siemens Medical Solutions expects to save US $1.13 million per year (€ 900,000) when the system is fully implemented. To date, 70% of the old system has been replaced

ConclusionThe Company that weʼve selected is Siemens Healthcare International. As a company Siemens had a variety of needs in their daily business operations where they had an option of integrating highly customized collaborative solutions. In this particular report, we discuss three different situations under separate departments in which they had implemented collaborative solutions to streamline business activities and thereby achieve operational efficiency. Siemens, after implementing customized tools in areas like communication, diagnosis and customer service have reported a considerable increase in their operational and cost efficiency.