I received the following invitation from IBM to look at the new Thinkpads. The event is being held at the Miller brewery and includes a beer tasting. A skeptic (which I am) might think that IBM is resorting to getting its customers drunk in order to get them to buy their computers. But, I really think this has a lot more to do with Wisconsin culture than the IBM products…

Dear Mr.Weider, Per the phonemail I left you earlier today… I’m the IBM client rep that’s responsible for working with Affinity Health System. I’d like to invite you (attached .pdf file) to an IBM Think Smart Technology Briefing. We will be conducting an overview of our PC/ThinkPad product strategies in Milwaukee on Tues 4/26… these sessions are typically conducted by folks from our HQ/Executive Briefing Center– really top notch– and would be well worth your time. As you can see– session is being held at Miller Brewing– even having a brewery tour afterwards… bottomline– this would provide excellent introductory opportunity to the IBM/Lenovo business and product strategies… would your team be interested in attending?

Exchange Recovery is always a nightmare. Do yourself a favor and always tell your users you will be down all day. Anything more agressive will ultimately result in disappointment.

The problem with MS Access is that there is no application sharing built in…and it is expensive…and it needs to be loaded on every PC. Quickbase is a completely web-based service for building tables and relatively simple applications.

Intuit (yes, the Quicken people) has done a great job on the user interface. It is robust, yet easy to use. It is also very quick. I guess intuitive and quick is what you would expect from Intuit’s Quickbase.

Finally, I have a way to collaborate with others, via the web, on data sharing needs. We are now using Quickbase for issues lists, collaborative RFP development, and project tracking. Go check it out (www.quickbase.com).

For less than $10K per year you will have an enterprise-wide application development tool that will not require IS resources.

I have to get this off my chest…I have been looking at portfolio management software. The web is a great tool for finding out who is in this space and do a first pass qualification. The problem happens when one is really interested in pursuing something. Most of the web sites ask you to complete these idiotoc forms that apparently have been forwarded to nowhere. Here I am with money in hand and no one will return my inquiry. That drives me nuts.

I have just completed a PACS analysis and have to conclude that one cannot build a financial business case for PACS. I am finding that the cost of PACS maintenance alone offsets the film and productivity savings. In which case the millions of dollars in capital are all for naught. Sure there are “intangibles” such as improved turnaround time of radiology reports and the marketing value of the sporting the latest technology, but those are not worth the total investment in my mind.

So, how are these things getting bought? I believe They are added into new contruction projects where thay are a relatively minor cost and escape a thorough analysis. From there you are on the slippery slope where you need to continue to make investments to continue to do thing the “digital way.” These back door acquisitions also lead to poor acqusition processes that result in higher costs than and other disappointments.

Email me if you would like to see my PACS analysis.

I have been working a lot on Disaster Recovery lately. We had a disk failure that reminded us how important that is. Specifically, we need to improve how we recover everything that has happened since the last back-up tape.

For each system we are identifying the business processes that are supported by those systems, then looking at how we would recover the current day’s entries. Sometimes there is a paper audit trail. In many cases we are creating an electronic copy of the transactions in real-time and storing a couple of days off site. Many systems that use new database technology can use the transaction logs, but MEDITECH requires more work on our part. We are using print streams and interfaces to generate electronic copies of the transactions.

Email me if you want to see my DR plan.