Texas Health Resources: Using SOA to Successfully Manage Business Growth 

Texas Health Resources (THR) is one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit health care delivery systems in the US, serving over 6.3 million people living in 16 counties in north central Texas. THR has 13 hospitals, employs more than 18,250 people, with an IT staff of over 400 members. The organization’s human resources IT backbone is provided by Oracle/PeopleSoft’s HCM application.

THR continues to expand rapidly with a combination of organic growth and acquisition of hospitals to further consolidate its position as a leading healthcare provider in North Texas.

The Challenge
As THR acquired and brought new hospitals under its umbrella, the challenges of assimilating these entities became bigger and more difficult. Specifically, there was an urgent need to integrate disparate HR organizations, ERP systems and business processes. THR needed to quickly address and resolve the following issues:

1. Eliminate duplication of payroll, data, applications, processes and special organization support
2. Standardize governance around workflow, budget, accountability and ownership issues
3. Minimize cultural differences and organizational challenges brought about by acquisitions

The Solution
As SOA technology evolved, Animato and THR realized that SOA could provide a much-needed answer for its integration challenges. As THR’s strategic and operational ERP partner for the past nine years, Animato was in an ideal position to assess, recommend and implement a SOA solution.

After evaluating two pure play SOA solutions, it was determined that Oracle Fusion Middleware/ was the optimal solution, as it allowed them to use existing software assets and resources, provided seamless connectivity, continued Oracle support, and met its total cost of ownership (TCO) metrics.

Animato’s SOA solution framework included:  

1. Assessment for SOA readiness, creation of a roadmap with key recommendations, and steps to SOA architecture adoption
2. Update of Oracle/PeopleSoft  toolset to version 8.48  to take advantage of SOA enablers
3. Outline of new opportunities to re-create reports and interfaces
4. Establish protocols to implement Web services and enhance business process visibility

The Results
Even though THR’s SOA initiative is ongoing, the organization is already seeing the benefits of the implementation. Some of these benefits are:

1. Drop in maintenance costs from 80% to 73% of the total IT budget due to increased operational efficiency
2. Reduced business reporting lead time for consolidated reports from 5 to 2 days
3. Lower integration costs from redesign, assessments and revamp of systems by as much as 40 – 50% allows redeployment of IT resources in other areas
4.  A highly flexible environment for future mergers with new options to tie directly into existing legacy systems or converge into a unified structure
5. Updated, automated reporting capabilities with better integration with other enterprise systems for more meaningful data
6. Better control of system conversion calendar and resources required for new acquisitions