Apparatus Brings Integrated IT support to Innovative Health Provider

Client Profile

Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, OurHealth was founded in 2009 to address major challenges faced by businesses throughout the United States: escalating healthcare costs, the negative effects of chronic disease and unhealthy lifestyles, and the lack of convenient access to primary care. Co-founded by CEO Ben Evans and President Jeff Wells, MD, OurHealth establishes and operates primary care clinics for employer groups. The clinics provide onsite access to medical services and promote healthy behaviors through lifestyle counseling and wellness and productivity programs.

Challenge

As with many new companies, OurHealth needed to make strategic decisions regarding its resources, especially IT. OurHealth’s IT infrastructure needed to provide a seamless environment for line of business applications and functions. It also needed to securely support the company’s onsite clinics, meet HIPAA privacy requirements and provide remote access for OurHealth administrators.

“We recognized we had a need to manage our daily IT support, keep our hardware and software up to date and have a functioning help desk,” says Wells. “But we also recognized the need for it to be flexible and scalable.”

OurHealth’s marketing vision included plans to open new clinics, Wells says, which required establishing a scalable operational model that includes IT infrastructure. “Our organization will scale up by opening multiple clinics, and will need secure access to information and IT resources,” he says.

Like many emerging companies, OurHealth wanted to make efficient IT investments to minimize immediate capital costs, and in keeping with its lean growth strategy, hoped to initially avoid hiring a fulltime IT resource.

Solution

OurHealth began a search for a strategic IT partner and met with Apparatus along with several other service providers. “We were impressed with Apparatus’ ability to provide core IT support as we rollout new locations.”

After meeting with OurHealth and performing a comprehensive assessment of the company’s needs and strategy for the future, Apparatus created a plan that included:

• Chief Technology Officer (CTO)-level consulting
  
• Hardware deployment, including desktops and laptops, VoIP, wireless technology and Active Intelligence
  
• Microsoft Online Serrvices as a scalable cloud solution for email, storage and collaboration.

Results

Apparatus has become a valuable partner to the OurHealth leadership team. Says Wells, “Apparatus understood our approach and provided recommendations that not only met all of our needs but also reduced our overall forecasted IT expenditures by about 30 percent.”

Besides minimizing the company’s infrastructure and server footprint, Apparatus’ solution met OurHealth’s stability, security and remote access needs. Hardware recommendations helped the company forecast and prepare more accurately for start-up clinics and also provided a blueprint for meeting rollout dates. Having an Apparatus employee for on-demand, expert IT support has met OurHealth’s daily IT needs and has also led to strategic consulting that’s directly in line with the company’s goals.

“I’m really impressed with the degree to which we’ve been able to build a relationship with Apparatus,” Wells says. “Having Apparatus as our CTO has enabled them to more fully understand our business model and our ongoing needs. They’ve provided us with alternative options and solutions, even when it means they may miss some business opportunities. That shows me a maturity and commitment that’s really important in a long-term partnership.”