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Infinity Network Solutions

Upgrades, managed serviceshelp strengthen healthcareoperations

Customer ProfilePiedmont Orthopaedic specializes in orthopedic surgery, sportsmedicine, occupational medicine and podiatry. The 38-personpractice also has ambulatory therapy and orthopedic surgerycenters in its Macon, Georgia, facility.

SituationSince its founding in 1985, Piedmont Orthopaedic has established a reputation as a pre-mier facility for helping individuals with work, sports, accident and other injuries overcome their problems and return to more normal, active lives. Quality communications among physicians, other medical personnel, staff and patients has been one of the keys to theirsuccess.

Yet behind the scenes, Piedmont Orthopaedic’s communications technology was any-thing but healthy. Its voice, data and computing systems were in need of an upgrade – especially with the government mandate for universal adoption of electronic health records (EHR) by 2014. Too much downtime was robbing staff of productivity. There wasalso another issue.

“We outsource the management of all of our technology,” says Amanda Turner, office manager at Piedmont Orthopaedics. “In this case, though, we had one supplier for voice, another for email, still another for desktop computing and so on. If a problem involved two technologies it could be difficult to track down and correct. It was very frustrating forour users.”

With nearly all the technology reaching the refresh cycle at once, Piedmont Orthopaedic wanted to find a single firm that could upgrade the voice, data infrastructure and comput-ing systems, and then manage all of it (including the user help desk) for the practice.

SolutionWith no known candidates already in mind, Turner went to her local Chamber of Com-merce. That’s where she met Robert C. Betzel, president of Infinity Network Solutions, a Cisco Premier Certified partner.

After an initial review of Piedmont’s current state, Betzel and Infinity recommended a number of upgrades, including moving to a Cisco Voice over IP (VoIP) phone system with unified communications, replacing servers as well as nearly all user computers, and

reinstalling 100 percent of the infrastructure equipment for voice and data. Infinity also showed how its managed services practice could provide management of hardware, soft-ware and infrastructure through a single source.

Upgrades, managed services helpstrengthen healthcare operations

With no known candidates already in mind, Turner went to her local Chamber of Com-merce. That’s where she met Robert C. Betzel, president of Infinity Network Solutions, a Cisco Premier Certified partner.

After an initial review of Piedmont’s current state, Betzel and Infinity recommended a number of upgrades, including moving to a Cisco Voice over IP (VoIP) phone system with unified communications, replacing servers as well as nearly all user computers, and

reinstalling 100 percent of the infrastructure equipment for voice and data. Infinity also showed how its managed services practice could provide management of hardware, soft-ware and infrastructure through a single source.

ResultsIn November 2009, Infinity Network Solutions began implementing the upgrades, most of which happened over a single weekend. Officials installed the Cisco Unified Communica-tions 500 series for small business, SR520 secure routers, ASA security appliances and other technologies. They also moved the users to Cisco 7970 and 525G VoIP phones.

“Everything went very smoothly,” Turner says. “The learning curve for the office staff was very short, too. They went to the Infinity Network Solutions office in small groups for train-ing, and everyone got up to speed right away.”

In addition to the technology needs, another big consideration for Piedmont Orthopaedic was the cost. That’s where Infinity Network Solutions was able to provide an innovative answer. Its Infinity Technology Assurance Program (I-TAP), a proprietary IT rental pro-gram, allowed the practice to complete the upgrades for “a near net-zero” cost. And by Infinity offering fixed rather than per-use costs for the IT help desk, phone and network support, Piedmont Orthopedic is able to budget reliably instead of having to guess what IT support will cost each month.

Turner is also happy that the upgrades included the capability for wireless networking. Once the doctors have selected the EHR system they want to use, Piedmont Orthopaedic plans to move to tablet computers. All they’ll need to do is flip the switch and they’ll beconnected to the system.

As for Infinity Network Solutions, Turner says working with the firm’s associates is a real pleasure.

“Their management of the project was excellent,” she says. “Despite pretty much over-hauling every technology we use, the change was seamless for our users. They made it look easy. Everyone from Robert and our account manager on down make themselves available to us whenever we need them, and the help desk people have been great.They were the right people for the job.”

Infinity Network Solutions, Inc.

Corporate Head Office:93 Gateway DriveMacon, GA 31210

Phone: 478-475-9500Toll-Free: 1-866-475-9510

Email: [email protected]