This year instead of upgrading their workstations immediately, DAWM decided on using Microsoft Terminal Services when upgrading their PM software. That way, they could spread PC upgrades over time, have less disruption to their office and provide remote support access. Teri says, "i3 was careful not to compromise the setup of our PM system and made everything work together--painlessly and seamlessly.

"DAWM has improved revenues by 163 percent." Says Terri Boucher, practice manager

DAWM also outsources medical record transcription, statements and insurance claims. "We used to do everything and tie up our systems with printing statements and forms Now, we maintain only our mission critical applications in-house and have more time to handle patient calls," says Terri

According to Terri, "The Electronic Medical Records Age is looming and we will need to head in that direction soon. It is extremely critical for our physicians to have full time access to their patient records. We will not be able to do that without i3."

i3's local reputation provided easy accessibility and service for DAWM. i3 understood the problems that DAWM was facing and executed them. Our staff has helped doctors manage the increasing demands of health care compliance without growing staff through identifying, selecting, implementing and supporting practice management (PM) and medical records solutions. So, they can focus on their practices.

Haworth engages i3 to provide a variety of services, including:

• System Z CPU, disk and memory performance analysis
• System Z DB2 database and application optimization helped and prevent spending millions on additional hardware
• System Z z/OS Operating System and System Tools software project management execution
• System Z Managed Technology Services outsourcing of zSeries System Programming services (OS technical maintanence) while Haworth transitions their staff to a unified Unix environment
• pSeries - Unix RS/6000 hardware acquisition assistance for subsidiary company acquisition application transition

The team at i3 guided GVSU through two major upgrades of its mainframe hardware system - and then managed the challenging task of moving the university from the old mainframe system to a new open system in 2004.

"It's given us a 24/7 system that has greatly enhanced productivity"

"It's given us a 24/7 system that has greatly enhanced productivity," Fisher said. "It has self-service aspects for all the students, staff and faculty. And now we're giving it lots of functionality. We're implementing a portal that will give students improved online access to their records." Every time GVSU undertakes a major IT project like this, it goes out for competitive bids. And much to Fisher's delight, i3 keeps winning. A major factor is i3's status as an IBM partner. "We went through an extensive hardware analysis," Fisher said. "IBM had the best performance per cost in an Oracle environment. It's very expensive to add processors from a license standpoint, so we wanted the best. The p-series was rated much higher than other platforms." Mike Ritsema, President of i3 Business Solutions, said the success of the engagement has arisen from i3's ability to understand organizational objectives. "Grand Valley is a good example of where i3's enterprise technology experience, working with high availability, demanding customers and environments for mainframe, allows us to transfer those skills over to UNIX or Intel environments. Our ability to understand Grand Valley's demanding infrastructure, where students are accessing the system at 2 or 3 in the morning, makes the demands on the system 24/7 in nature. We transfer that from the UNIX to the Intel environment." A key player in the success of the effort is i3's Paul Lastas, who worked on site at GVSU two days a week during the transition.