 Home  Business Decision MakersCase Studies Malaysian medical center runs with clockwork precision with Microsoft Dynamics AX | |
| Malaysian medical center runs with clockwork precision with Microsoft Dynamics AX "Microsoft Dynamics AX is an ERP system that fits easily and quickly into a vertical industry, and its stability and high availability means it meets our highly exacting business requirements." Dr Ong Kee Liang, Managing Director, Life Care International Medical Group The Life Care International Medical Group operates medical centers, clinics and dialysis centers in Malaysia. Prior to its opening headquarters in June 2005, it faced the challenge of putting in place an integrated system encompassing financials, hospital information management, laboratory and imaging facilities. Life Care appointed MBP Solutions Sdn Bhd to deploy a Microsoft Dynamics AX solution, which was fully integrated with the front-end health information and laboratory information systems within two months. Life Care found Microsoft Dynamics AX to be an integrated ERP system that fits easily and quickly into a variety of vertical industries including the healthcare business. The system has proven to be highly stable and reliable, helping Life Care operate a highly efficient and productive work environment, eliminating many manual work processes.  Situation Khind Life Care International Medical Group is a healthcare group operating medical centers, clinics and dialysis centers in Malaysia. The fast growing group, which comprises more than 10 subsidiaries and associate companies including one in Indonesia, has about 100 employees. Established in 2005, Life Care's vision is to be a world class health and wellness center providing complete, accurate, safe diagnosis with state-of-the-art facilities for early disease detection and prevention. The group's experienced medical team includes specialists in cardiology, radiology, nephrology, gastroenterology, internal medicine and nutrition. Prior to the opening of its headquarters and medical centre in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, in June 2005, the management faced the challenge of putting in place an integrated system encompassing financials, hospital information management, laboratory and imaging facilities. Life Care's task was made tougher as it needed to deploy its front-end system named Health Information System (HIS) and the Laboratory Information System (LIS) concurrently with a reliable and scalable ERP system within a short time frame of about two months. The group did not want a situation where the hospital's three main systems were disparate information silos unable to communicate with each other. As such, the ERP system to be implemented had to be able to integrate and communicate with the HIS and LIS systems, says Life Care Managing Director Dr Ong Kee Liang. "As we are operating a medical center with many patients and customers, we needed to have a very stable and reliable ERP system in place from Day 1 as patients' data will be entered into the various systems," he adds. After exploring a few options, Life Care chose Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Microsoft Axapta), a multicurrency ERP solution designed for midsize and larger companies. Ong explained that Microsoft Dynamics AX was selected because of the Microsoft brand as well as its ease of implementation, reliability and availability of technical support. "It is a world-class solution backed by the world's biggest software company," he adds. "With Microsoft, you know the company will be there in the long term. You don't have to run around looking for people to service you, unlike some home grown software providers which may just 'disappear' after a while," he points out. "We plan to use our software for the longer term because you don't want to change your system all the time," he adds. Solution Ong also says it was easier and more cost-effective to get resources such as system administrators and programmers for the Windows platform and Microsoft Dynamics AX. In addition, says Ong, there was an established community of Microsoft partners with the expertise to implement, maintain and support Microsoft solutions such as Microsoft Dynamics AX. Life Care appointed Microsoft Gold Certified Partner MBP Solutions Sdn Bhd (a subsidiary of TFP Solutions Bhd) to deploy the Microsoft Dynamics AX solution and to integrate it with the medical center's other major systems. MBP Solutions successfully implemented the Microsoft Dynamics AX system in two months and ensured it was fully integrated with the HIS and LIS systems. It started implementation in April 2005 and successfully completed the deployment of Microsoft Dynamics AX just before the medical center's launch in June 2005. The Financial and Distribution modules acts as the hospital's backend system to handle accounting, cash sales operations, purchases and inventory control while integrating seamlessly to the front-end HIS solution, laboratory information and imaging systems. For example, scan and blood test results from the laboratory information system are captured and uploaded to the Microsoft Dynamics AX system. Patient information from the HIS system is similarly integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics AX system. "So, every time the doctor comes in, he will log in to the HIS system and will see the information which is linked from the laboratory system. The systems are fully integrated, and it is Microsoft Dynamics AX which is the heart, or gateway, pulling these two systems together," says MBP Solutions Director, TJ Quah, adding that authorized users of Microsoft Dynamics AX can access patient information from the other two systems. Ong was pleased that MBP Solutions pulled off the deployment of the Microsoft Dynamics AX system and its integration with the key hospital systems in time for the soft launch, commending MBP Solutions for its professional expertise in deploying, customizing and integrating the system speedily. "There was no room for error because since the opening, we have had to deal with large crowds of people. We needed the systems operating from Day 1 to do registration, capture patient information, receive deposits and payments, print bills, receipts, invoices and the like," explains Ong. He adds that since the opening of the hospital in 2005, the Microsoft Dynamics AX system has been found to be highly reliable and enabled Life Care to carry on expanding its business without any hitches. Benefits Stability assured For Life Care, having a financial backend system that was highly stable and reliable was a non-negotiable business requirement. In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the medical center found a system which more than met its high expectations. "To run a medical center, the most important thing we look for in any system is stability. The information needs to be available anytime I click on it. We are very much customer service orientated, and we cannot allow our service to customers to be affected because our system is down," he explains. "We have been using Microsoft Dynamics AX for over two years now and we have found it to be highly stable and reliable. We haven't had any significant downtime with the system, and our staff is very happy with its performance and high availability," says Ong, who gave a "5-star" rating to Microsoft Dynamics AX for its stability and high availability. He adds the stability of the Microsoft Dynamics AX system ensures that Life Care does not suffer financial losses because of disruptions to its business operations. "If the system is not stable, it will definitely impact our business and bottom line. If the system is down and we cannot access our patient information, operations will be delayed and our customers will be very angry." Easy integration Setting up the IT systems of a medical center is certainly a challenging task. But it becomes a task of nightmarish proportions when compounded with an extremely tight deadline to get all the systems running seamlessly from the first day of operation. However, Life Care's decision to implement the Microsoft Dynamics AX system turned out to be an enlightened move as it greatly facilitated the process of integrating the hospital's key systems with the financial backend system. In addition, with Microsoft Dynamics AX, there is seamless connectivity with products such as Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office applications and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, says MBP Solutions' Quah. Also central to the success of the project was MBP Solutions' expertise in the programming customization integration encompassing operating system and database aspects. "Deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX for Life Care required us to integrate two other different systems, namely HIS and LIS, which runs on the Linux (on MySQL database) and UNIX platforms, respectively. "By leveraging MBP Solution's competency, and the flexibility of the AX engine, it enables Microsoft Dynamics AX to 'talk' to these two systems for interchanging of data. In addition, its 'seamless connectivity to third party products' architecture makes it easy to integrate to common applications such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook and so on. "This flexible and highly customizable system significantly provided added-value to MBP Solutions, enabling us to get the medical center's systems fully integrated in merely two months. Furthermore, this integration customization will not be a burden at all to Life Care in her Microsoft Dynamics AX upgrades in future." From the partner's perspective, Quah says "We found Microsoft Dynamics AX to be very a powerful and flexible product, highly scalable and reliable". "It is a business solution that fits easily and quickly into virtually any vertical industry. We can easily configure and customize it to meet vertical industry needs such as, in this case, the life sciences," he affirms. Enhanced productivity By having a fully-integrated business solution like Microsoft Dynamics AX, Life Care is able to ensure a highly efficient and productive work environment. Ong says Microsoft Dynamics AX eliminates many manual processes and double data entry. The solution's smooth integration with the HIS and LIS systems also ensure there are no information silos within the hospital. "All our systems can communicate with each other," he adds. "Now, I can have the overview of the company's information by accessing all of our key systems from Microsoft Dynamics AX. So that is productivity. If not for this integration, I would have to open up to three different applications to get the necessary information. "Now with Microsoft Dynamics AX, I can just pull out information from HIS or LIS, and I get a total view of the customer's information," says Ong, adding that having real-time business information available also improves the management's decision-making process. Cost reductions The ease of deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX and integrating it with other key systems resulted in a significant reduction in the implementation cost. Quah says the project implementation cost could have been considerably higher as it was not unusual for IT projects of this complexity to take four to six months to be completed. Instead, Ong was highly impressed that the Microsoft Dynamics AX system was up and running in just two months and was working seamlessly with the HIS and LIS solutions. "With Microsoft Dynamics AX, we didn't have to pay an arm and leg to customize, configure and integrate the system. Its ease of customization and integration meant that the project cost was much lower compared to implementing competing solutions," he adds. He also highlights that Life Care did not suffer any business losses since the Microsoft Dynamics AX system was deployed well before the official launch date of the medical center. "If the project had been delayed, Life Care would have suffered financially and our reputation adversely affected," states Ong. He concludes by saying that the Life Care management was pleased that its decision to opt for a business solution from a highly regarded software company like Microsoft has paid rich dividends. "Microsoft Dynamics AX system is an ERP system that fits easily and quickly into a vertical industry, and its stability and high availability means that it meets our highly exacting business requirements," Ong adds. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Microsoft Dynamics Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what's most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success. For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to: www.microsoft.com/dynamics | Overview Country or Region: Malaysia Industry: Healthcare  Customer Profile Life Care International Medical Group is a healthcare group operating medical centers, clinics and dialysis centers in Malaysia. It has over 10 subsidiaries and associate companies, employing 100 staff. Business Situation Prior to its opening in June 2005, Life Care faced the challenge of putting in place an integrated system encompassing financials, hospital information management, laboratory and imaging facilities. Solution Life Care decided to deploy a Microsoft Dynamics AX solution, which was successfully integrated with its front-end health information and laboratory information systems within two months. Benefits
Dr Ong Kee Liang, Managing Director, Life Care International Medical Group "We have been using Microsoft Dynamics AX for over two years now and we have found it to be highly stable and reliable." Dr Ong Kee Liang, Managing Director, Life Care International Medical Group For More Information For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com/malaysia For more information about MBP Solutions Sdn Bhd products and services, call +603 8060 0808 or visit the Web site at: www.tfp.com.my For more information about Life Care International Medical Group services, call +603 7955 0650. For other case studies in this series, visit www.microsoft.com/malaysia/casestudies |