Questions

1. Assume you were the CEO of Wilmington Blood Center, what process would you use to replace the current system? Who would be involved? Who do you think should lead the effort? Include your rationale.

2. Once a preferred vendor and product is chosen, what steps would you take to implement the new system? How might you ensure that the implementation process is managed effectively so as to protect the interests of the organization and ultimately lead to a successful installation? What do you anticipate will be your greatest challenges? How will you evaluate success of the project?

CASE

The Wilmington Blood Center The following case was originally written by James Decker, a doctoral student in the executive health administration and leadership program at the Medical University of South Carolina.

One of the greatest challenges facing Wilmington Blood Center is the selection and implementation of a new computer system to replace the existing computerized donor tracking system. The current system is somewhat dated and lacks the functionality that will be critical in the future. While the decision is an important one and necessary for sustainable organizational success, it will also require a substantial financial commitment and would place additional stress on an already tight budget.

Organizational Description Wilmington Blood Center is a private, not-for-profit blood center located in the Midwest. Established nearly 40 years ago, it is the sole supplier of blood and blood products for 35 hospitals within a 15-county service area. It has limited financial resources upon which to make capital investments, and 98 percent of its operational and capital costs are financed by blood supplier processing fees charged to its client hospitals.

While Wilmington Blood Center has enjoyed steady and consistent growth over the past 40 years, every facet of its operations, including the management of donor information, must adhere to the strict blood product safety regulations established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA conducts routine inspections so as to assure compliance with standards related to donor recruitment, screening and registration, phlebotomy and collections, lab testing, labeling, and distribution. Accurate and detailed records of each area of the blood center must be maintained in accordance with prescribed FDA standards.

Information Systems Perhaps Wilmington's greatest organizational weakness is the fact that the current computer system used for tracking donors and donor information is over 20 years old and close to being obsolete. The system, known as Trakker, is one which was custom built internally by a consultant programmer. Although once state of the art, Trakker's functionality and capabilities are not up to current industry standards.

The technology of the system platform is no longer supported, and the programmer, while still on retainer by the organization, is nearing retirement. Trakker is a database platform from a relatively small company, which functions primarily in the UNIX and custom mainframe environment.

Certain aspects of Trakker rely on FoxPro, a legacy database and development platform that is no longer in general use. Since this is a somewhat rare system by today's standards, finding people with the skill set to support Trakker is extremely difficult and expensive.

With the impending retirement of the consultant, there is growing concern regarding how the system might be supported in the future and the risk to the organization in the event that he is no longer available. It is envisioned that it will become increasingly difficult to keep Trakker operational in an ever-evolving technological environment.

Trakker utilizes technologies and processes that are gradually being phased out of contemporary information systems because of security concerns and limitations of such legacy systems. Trakker is a relatively unsecure platform running on a personal computer, and from a hardware standpoint, is not able to take advantage of advances in computing technologies that have been made since its inception.

The Challenge There are several commercially available systems on the market that have specific applications to the blood banking industry. Advantages to replacing Trakker with another system are:

• Most new systems run on an Oracle platform, thus making use of commonly used technology for which there would be available personnel with the appropriate skill set for system support.

• Commercially available systems would already be 510K compliant; therefore, they would function in accordance with FDA regulations.

• A new system could be configured so as to communicate with other peripheral systems (i.e. donor recruitment, financial reporting, lab testing, etc.) with sufficient network security layers, redundancy, and firewall protection.

• The new system would be able to utilize current and future advances in technology so as to improve functionality and storage of information.

The obvious obstacles to overcome will be:

• Hardware and software licensing costs are estimated to be in the $1 million to $1.5 million range, creating a major capital budgeting challenge.

• A trained professional would need to be hired in an Information Technology Management capacity to assist with implementation and ongoing technical support.

• Annual operating costs, estimated at $125,000, would need to be budgeted to account for additional personnel and system support from the vendor of choice.

• System configuration, data transfer, and initial training will place additional duties on all members of the management team.

• All user groups throughout the organization would need to participate in time-consuming training, thereby affecting productivity.