The Crucial Value of Software Asset Management to Healthcare Organizations
Author: Scott Davidson
March 2007
By Scott Davidson, Heartland Area General Manager, Microsoft Corporation Small and Mid-market Solutions and Partners Group
Medicine and technology always have been as firmly entwined as the caduceus itself; and now hospitals are turning to technology to safeguard patient data and ensure the most secure environment for healthcare computing. Medical facilities are employing technology not only to improve patient care, speed diagnosis and treatment, but also to safeguard these capabilities, through monitoring devices, electronic filters, firewalls and other software-based solutions.
While the clinical side of healthcare continues to innovate its way through demanding requirements—shifting to electronic records and mobile devices, for example—the information side of the technology infrastructure is proving to be similarly challenging. Increasingly, healthcare organizations are relying on software to overcome the barriers of geography, time, cost and complexity; but too often these hospitals and medical centers have not equipped themselves with the processes and systems they need to ensure crucial software remains safe, up-to-date and operational.
Many hospitals, for example, allow individual departments or employees to buy and install software themselves, thereby losing control over whom in the organization is purchasing applications from which vendors. While software sits unopened in one department, another unit may be buying more copies of the same release. Security also becomes a problem in multi-location organizations. Without better monitoring, tracking and policies, disruptions to the network may occur at any of a number of sites and ultimately affect patient care.
Problems are compounded by paper-based software inventory systems. When monitoring inventory consists of compiling paper purchase orders, data may be missing and proof of licensing can become difficult. Without a centralized system, the software itself may be difficult to locate and to deploy where it’s needed most. Regulations add another layer of complexity, with HIPPA privacy requirements and similar mandates that make the security of the facility’s patient records essential and software management all the more crucial.
A strategic business process called software asset management (SAM) offers a way for IT managers at healthcare facilities to regain control of their software assets, to save a considerable amount of money and to make the hospital both safer and more productive. For many healthcare organizations, in fact, SAM has become a strategic asset, nearly as valuable as the technology itself, since it allows the organization to operate in a more secure environment, with better safeguards over records and better management of patient privacy rights.
The SAM Process
Implementing a software asset management program entails four primary steps:
- Perform a software inventory. It’s essential to know exactly what software—in which versions—the organization owns and how it has been deployed. An inventory can be performed by checking the hard drive of each PC using a software inventory tool that scans the PCs on the network and combines the information into a master report.
- Match software with licenses. Gather the organization’s licensing documentation and compare the results of the software inventory with the licensing information to find instances in which the organization is under, or over, licensed.
- Review policies and procedures. Centralize software acquisition to reduce costs by purchasing the right type of licensing and to allocate the software most efficiently. Set policies that designate who can purchase software from which vendors and then track and update the software regularly.
- Develop a SAM plan. Create an ongoing plan to analyze anticipated software needs, keep software and licensing documentation in a safe location, create a software and hardware “map” that indicates what software has been deployed on which machines, and develop an inventory schedule for periodically keeping software information current.
The SAM process enables healthcare facilities to optimize their investments in software assets by ensuring that they don’t pay unnecessary licensing fees and that all software is deployed to the right staff at the right time. Additionally, SAM assures the organization’s business processes and reduces risk by protecting records, equipment, networks and patient health. SAM also helps the organization build for the future. It provides physicians, nurses and internal staff with the right technology for their changing needs, enhancing the hospital’s reputation for more-accurate and safer patient care. Secure software allows the organization to engage in reliable forecasting and planning to improve its competitive stature.
The importance of SAM in the medical setting: today and in the future
Software asset management helps improve operational performance in a healthcare facility’s most critical IT areas. SAM helps ward off the installation of dangerous software and provides the enduring database security required as paper recordkeeping is transformed into electronic medical records. It also provides a method of keeping all software up to date.
To provide effective patient care, for example, physicians and staff must be aware of which versions of specific applications are current. All the work stations across the facility should be running the same version of a particular piece of software, and SAM can help guarantee that consistency.
Similarly, in today’s hospitals, a physician may use a PDA to look up lab results, write a order, or capture charges right at the patient’s bedside. When e-prescribing, these doctors rely on medical formularies to decide on the type and amount of a drug to prescribe for a particular patient and check for possible drug-drug interactions, so it’s vital to be certain the available data draws on the most current pharmacy information. Here, again, SAM can help lead to improved patient care by ensuring the most complete listing of pharmaceuticals is available to the physician.
In the future, it’s expected that hospital staff will rely on pattern recognition technology to gather documents, consultant contact information and test results automatically as needed. Patients will be monitored remotely in real time through RFID devices and web services; and, in the hospital, patient data will be entered instantaneously as the nurse takes readings with instruments. With such increased reliance on software applications, managing them becomes even more vitally important.
Beyond management itself, cost savings alone should make SAM a priority initiative for healthcare organizations. Medical facilities in particular are paying far more in license fees than they should; dollars that would be better spent caring for patients. SAM brings these fees under control, helping the IT department make certain the right application is on the right desktop for every user and setting policies for future purchase and deployments that will keep costs in hand.
SAM can make the crucial difference between success or frustration, efficiency or error, improved profitability or immensely burdensome costs. Many hospital executives are turning to SAM as a remedy for the managing challenges that come along with the implementation of advanced healthcare technology.
For further information on SAM, visit www.microsoft.com/resources/sam.
About the author: Scott Davidson is the Heartland Area General Manager for Microsoft’s Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners Group, which consists of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
