INFORMATION SERVICES

The company's experience and expertise in Information Services covers the full spectrum of Information Services. The services covered may be as basic as working with the client to configure IP addresses or as extensive as designing a full‑scale computer system to replace an existing system or for a new facility.

The company has designed, from inception, a full‑scale computer system for a new hospital. Under this particular project, the new hospital was a new venture of an existing healthcare client of the firm. The healthcare provider obviously had a total information services system at the main campus and was desirous of tying this new facility in. However, the company providing the Information Services to the hospital had submitted a proposal that was not acceptable to the hospital.

The hospital client asked JRA to totally specify a new Information Services system at the new facility, including applications, software, hardware and infrastructure. Once this specification was completed, it was then submitted to the incumbent Information Services provider, as well as three other companies.

The incumbent company realized that the client really was going to set up a whole new system at the off‑site location, which would eventually put the system at the main campus in jeopardy and responded with a proposal that was economically competitive. The hospital client then had the opportunity to choose the system that best met their needs. To no surprise of anyone, the incumbent was awarded the contract.

Another major application has to do with a very large client that has over 50 off‑site locations in addition to the corporate headquarters. The client company was the result of a merger between two companies that had been doing partnerships and joint ventures in the past.

Once the merger was complete, the new entity became acutely aware that the Information Services provider was not providing services that met the needs of the new company. Many meetings and conversations with this provider took place, but unfortunately they were not willing to discuss providing services that were more in line with the needs of the new entity.

JRA has been retained to do needs analysis, including not only the corporate location but also all off‑site locations. The needs analysis has to do with not only terminal gear and infrastructure, but also a review of existing applications and additional needed applications. An audit is also being conducted at each of the locations as to the total hardware and infrastructure needs.

The final deliverable to the client will be a technical system specification that will be submitted to vendors who have the capability of providing total Information Services to the company. Documents that will be submitted prior to this technical specification include Functional Specifications outlining the distillation of user needs, an Audit Report documenting the findings of the physical audit for each location, a Standard Operating Environment [SOE] recommending standards for each I.S. component and a Training Plan that states the suggested training needs and requirements for each user at each location.

These are two examples of the major type of project that the firm welcomes. However, many Information Services activities are not this substantial or dramatic. JRA has been very successful in working with many companies and institutions to maximize efficiencies of in‑place systems and I. S. components. These lesser, but still very important, projects are always welcome. Existing clients will endorse the notion that in‑place systems can often be brought to a higher level of productivity, often, without major expenditures of funds.