How Smart IT Maintenance Can Help Health Care Rise to the Challenge

Park Place Hardware Maintenance


Parker August 06, 2019

There are options available to help health care’s IT shift toward digital transformations that can improve efficiency and enhance quality of care over the long run.

Unprecedented challenges face the health care industry today. Federal reforms in the U.S. have compelled a rapid transition to electronic health records (EHR). Debates continue over whether HIPAA-level security is better delivered with on-premises or cloud-based infrastructure. Rampant consolidation is bringing together health systems with divergent technology approaches, and frequently, key solutions fail the interoperability test. Even tracking existing assets can be a herculean task for the health care CIO.

Deloitte reports that a global trend toward universal health coverage and telemedicine, such as efforts in India, Mexico, Malaysia and China, is straining resources and infrastructure. A global move toward collecting and using data to improve services is also creating pain points.

And that is in addition to the long-lasting effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

There is great ambition in the industry — for example, to use artificial intelligence to plumb health records for life-saving insights — but barely a minute (or a dollar) left to invest in such initiatives. Additionally, many healthcare organizations are focused on removing inefficiencies across their IT teams and infrastructure. All the while, budget constraints compound, so “keeping the lights on” functions may increasingly overshadow strategic objectives.

Fortunately, there are options available to help health care’s IT shift toward digital transformations that can improve efficiency and enhance quality of care over the long run. Among the most powerful and easy-to-implement changes is using third-party maintenance to support IT assets.

Four Pillars of Service

Third party data center hardware maintenance offers health care organizations an alternative to the more expensive, less responsive form of support supplied by the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Particularly for post-warranty and EOSL (end of support life) equipment, third-party hardware maintenance can take on the responsibility for supporting, repairing, and repurposing these systems, as needed.

There are four key ways Park Place Technologies can improve a switch from OEM support for medical institutions and others in the health care industry:

  • Simplicity. We cover hardware from all Tier 1 OEMs, giving clients a “one stop shop” for their IT maintenance needs. This feature alone can radically reduce the amount of staff time devoted to managing contracts, as well as figuring out the coverage and processes to follow in order to access support when problems arise.
  • Proactive maintenance. Park Place doesn’t wait for systems to go on the fritz. With our automated ParkView Hardware Monitoring™, we are on the lookout for issues-in-the-making. ParkView integrates machine learning algorithms to analyze the myriad data collected about the environment and identify potential issues before they can cause bigger problems. The system then performs a triage process and files an automated trouble ticket with all the information our engineers need to intervene successfully. ParkView is a big part of how we deliver resolution faster and achieve better first-time fix rates than the competition.
  • Single-pane management. Central Park puts all parts of the maintenance process at your fingertips. Whether you need to update the level of coverage on a particular system or want to submit a trouble ticket, it can be done within one convenient portal. Helpfully, Central Park is also a powerful IT asset tracking system our clients get for free.
  • We don’t just save clients time with easy-to-use features like Central Park, we also save them money. In fact, Park Place helps customers save on average 30-40% on maintenance compared to the OEMs.

Core Benefits to the Health Care Mission

These core TPM advantages translate into various benefits to a health care organization:

  • Extending hardware lifespan with affordable maintenance options translates into lower capital investment in new hardware, as well as improved operational expenses for maintaining your IT hardware. It’s generally not necessary to house EHR, for example, on the latest storage arrays. Systems can remain in place—and remain reliable—for many years longer than the OEMs generally support. The key is engaging a maintenance partner with the right engineering and spare parts resources to make it happen.
  • Better utilizing your team is easier when complementing in-house expertise with knowledgeable “feet on the ground” when you need them. Saving administrators the hassles of troubleshooting and break/fix empowers them to stay focused on high-priority tasks. What’s more, supplying access to L3 engineers with extensive experience with the very products in your environment enables them to get past questions and quandaries and on to the next step that much faster. When the IT talent shortage is leaving gaping holes in many health systems’ IT rosters, supplementing with third-party maintenance is becoming an essential tactic.
  • Ensuring Uptime so patients receive better service. Health care enterprises can least tolerate downtime. Not only do hospital systems and other health care providers set the bar for mission critical, patients are raising their expectations for customer service, online capabilities, telehealth, and more. Companies that can’t deliver consistently will end up suffering the consequences of high client turnover. Park Place helps numerous businesses recognized for digital excellence to maintain their brand reputation, and we can assist other members of the health care industry reach similar levels of reliability, availability, and performance—which all translates into the service patients are demanding.
  • Saving room in the operating budget for other investments. By optimizing support costs and extending hardware lifespan, third-party hardware maintenance helps health care organizations invest in IT that does more than keep the lights on. And unlike many other cost-saving measures, it takes little time or energy to make the switch. Third-party maintenance is one of the few turnkey choices available for immediate IT savings.

For IT leaders in the health care space who feel like they’re barely keeping up and need an option to help them break through to strategic projects, third-party maintenance with Park Place Technologies is a viable, affordable, effective answer.

If you need more information, contact us anytime. We’ll be happy to talk.

About the Author

Parker, Park Place Assistant