FUD is an acronym for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt and is defined as a “tactic of rhetoric used in sales, marketing and public relations...to influence public perception by disseminating negative and vague information.”

Wikipedia continues by stating big companies typically use this strategy to discourage decision-makers from purchasing technically superior products from growing companies. Sound familiar? Luckily, we can thank our clients like you in setting the record straight about the value of Panther5 versus the FUD of Olympus and Lights On.

Our marketing department has recently developed a comparison document to outline the true differences between our latest 5.7 release and Olympus to give you even more ammunition. To download this information click compare.

You’ll also see some other examples of our superior technical capability in this issue of Monitor including:

• New training videos reachable by all users in our Help area of Panther5.7.
  
  
• Results of our client poll on the prioritization of additional enhancement solutions you’d like to see in future releases of Panther.
  
  
• A full reporting of how Panther5 Support continues to excel in solving Points filed by our users.
  
  
• Exciting news on how your hospital’s CIO and management team can participate in defining a new management reporting initiative we’re planning.

Unlike our competition, we believe honest dialogue is the best way to not only grow our customers’ loyalty but our products’ features and benefits. As always, I welcome your feedback at matt.mclenon@softekinc.com.

Matt McLenon
CEO, Softek Solutions, Inc.



Tips & Tricks

Panther5 Launches Two-Click Access to Training Videos
Panther5 has long been recognized as one of the easiest and most intuitive software programs to use in the healthcare industry, however, to take full advantage of all of the robust features and benefits available in Panther5.7 we’ve launched a series of training videos strategically located under the Help menu of the Panther5 product.

These professionally-produced streaming videos were designed by our onsite trainers and deliver an easy-to-follow format to take full advantage of the Panther5 power to Maximize Millennium. We’ve even organized the videos by type of user, with introductory videos for general users, to more in-depth selections for Power Users.

To access these easy-to-take videos, simply:

1. Click on the Help option on the Panther5 Tool Bar.
2. Select Panther Videos from the drop down menu.
3. Make your selection from our Panther “New Features” video listing.

At the end of each video is a short survey to gain feedback so we can continually improve upon this new and exciting training opportunity. So pop some popcorn and select your subject of interest today!



Panther5 Update

CHC Demo Event Could Be Music to Your Ears
If you know a hospital IT person who is attending the 2008 Cerner Healthcare Conference (CHC), but hasn’t yet experienced the benefits of Panther5, bring them to our hotel Suite for a short 15-minute demonstration and we’ll treat you both like Rock Stars...including providing iTune Gift Cards worth up to $50. For additional details, visit www.softekpanther.com/rockstar.

Input Needed for New Management Report Initiative
Client Services is currently searching for CIOs and other senior IT management to participate in providing us feedback on a new Management Report service initiative we’re developing. This new service from Softek will share reports with detailed historical analysis of key system events that occur within the Millennium® environment. If you or someone in your hospital is interested in providing us input on this exciting new service program, please contact russ.derringer@softekinc.com.

Softek Support Stats for Last Twelve Months Announced
As part of our on-going commitment to provide fully transparent information to our clients, we’re pleased to share the statistics from support points received by Panther from September 1, 2007 to September 1, 2008.

While Softek classifies points under multiple headings, for purposes of this statistical analysis, we’ve combined them into the following two categories: Issue Points which comprise of those points identifying a usage deficiency until resolved which may be a Panther or local environment-related variance and Miscellaneous Points which are points placed to share information, enhancements or raise specific questions unrelated to a usage deficiency.

Key statistics include:

• Panther Support received an average of 8.31 Points per active organization. Of this total, the split between Issue Points and Miscellaneous Points was 45% (3.72 per organization) to 55% (4.59 per organization).
  
  
• 81.6% of the total points opened were considered low or medium in severity.
  
  
• The average response time to acknowledge points durring the year has been 25 minutes and 34 seconds.
  
  
• Overall point closure time was 15 days, 22 hours and 36 minutes for the year versus 17 days, 13 hours and 31 minutes from 2007.
  
  
• Currently there are 12 open bug points, most of which will be resolved with the release of Panther 5.7.

These outstanding results are attributed to two factors: the quality code in Panther5 and a point management system committed to achieving continual client satisfaction.

Panther “Future Enhancement” Poll Results
In the last issue of Softek Monitor, we invited our readers to rank various future enhancements suggested by our clients as Softek looks beyond our upcoming first quarter 2009 release of Panther5. We appreciate the sizeable feedback we received on this listing, as well as some additional new product enhancement ideas you all sent our way.

Here are the average ratings, on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being most desirable, for each of the enhancements listed:

The heritage at Softek is to build products by listening to the needs of our clients, and this feedback is very helpful in prioritizing our future Panther road map. Thank you again for your participation.



New Panther5 Clients

Two more hospitals have selected Panther5 to help them Maximize Millennium® since our last issue of Softek Monitor. Included in the list are self-hosted Memorial Springfield of Illinois and St. Peter’s University Hospital, our first Millennium® RHO hospital to join us without being a prior Panther5 client (we’ve had several other clients who have converted to RHO and kept Panther5 as an internal management and monitoring tool). Collectively, these remote-hosted hospitals realize that Panther5 remains an important asset in maximizing the productivity of their Millennium® system.

Saint Peters University Hospital: Serving the health care needs of central New Jersey, Saint Peter’s has grown from first being incorporated in 1908 to become a technologically-advanced, 478-bed teaching hospital providing a broad array of medical services. As a state-designated acute care children’s hospital, Saint Peter’s offers a full range of specialized pediatric health care services, including one of the most sophisticated maternity programs in the country, delivering approximately 6,100 newborns annually.

Memorial Medical Center: Memorial Medical Center is a 562-bed teaching hospital in Springfield, Illinois, affiliated with the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. In 2007, Memorial Medical received Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Services form the American Nurses Credentialing Center…the highest level of recognition awarded. In addition, HealthGrades, one of the leading, independent ratings companies, announced Memorial Medical Center was ranked No. 1 in Illinois for the second year in a row and among the top 5 percent of hospitals nationwide for overall orthopedic services and joint replacement surgery.



Client Raves

“Recently our hospital systems were affected by a computer virus. In the process of determining the origin, we were asked to turn off various software products including Panther5. We not only confirmed Panther5 had nothing to do with the virus but learned during the exercise how dependent we had become on Panther5 in managing and monitoring the Cerner Millennium® system.”

Zach Johnson
Manager of Clinical and Revenue Cycle Systems
H. Lee Moffitt
Tampa, Florida



Weigh-in On CareAware Monitoring & Management Initiative

CareAware is a new product offering from Cerner corporation that is intended to gather information from bedside medical device interfaces (BMDI) and provide a reliable transport of the information to a subscribing system such as Millennium®.

As Softek Panther continues to investigate opportunities to provide additional services to our client hospitals, we’ve been considering expanding our current interface functionality of Panther5.7 to include six (6) sensors to help reduce or prevent interruptions of the new CareAware product. As always, we welcome your feedback as we determine the importance of undertaking this initiative and your answers to the following questions are appreciated:


Panther5 Success Story

RHO Hospital Manages System Locally with Softek Panther5
When Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center selected the Remote Hosted Option (RHO) at their hospital for Cerner Millennium®, they quickly realized the value Softek Panther5™ provided as an internal management and verification solution they could rely upon every day.

“After flipping to RHO, we knew we remained on the firing line with our clinicians if there was any performance issue with the Millennium system,” said Joe Ryan, IT Technical Specialist. “Panther5 gives us the insights we need to be proactive in resolving issues that fall on our side of the fence and the ability to escalate issues that fall on Cerner’s side of the fence.”

Speed of identifying and resolving data bottlenecks before system slowdowns occur has long been a cornerstone of the Panther5 monitoring and management solution for Cerner Millennium®. Within a remote-hosted environment, Panther5 provides the added assurance that changes made centrally to the system will not have unexpected consequences at the point-of-care.

“We just had an issue where Cerner put in a performance patch that resulted in the system trying to cycle more than one server at a time,” said Ryan. “Without Panther5, we wouldn’t have received the notification that these attempts were being made so we were able to quickly inform Cerner of the situation before system performance was compromised.”

Panther5 also provides fast notification of other system slowdowns at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. “Nine times out of ten, we’re alerting Cerner and letting them know of an event that their internal monitoring solution hasn’t even notified them of yet.”
“We also appreciate the rich audit functionality of Panther5,” adds Ryan. “No matter if the change was made remotely or in-hospital, Panther5 tracks everything – from server configuration changes to open engine interface definitions – so we can quickly look back to identify the cause of a system slowdown.”

Ryan and his team recognize the added ease and control Panther5 provides within the hospital in cycling servers, including the recently introduced group cycling feature. His team also finds tremendous value in the intuitive HL7 Loader that makes reading and interpreting HL7 files a simpler task.

What final words does Joe Ryan have to share for other hospital IT departments considering outsourcing the management of Cerner Millennium®? “Remember that the accountability of system performance will rest squarely on the shoulders of those remaining IT staff members,” said Ryan. “Panther5 is worth every penny in providing the support your end users deserve.”


Download the PDF print verson here.