Pervasive Helps Sysware Deliver Results
"Pervasive.SQL's added benefits truly help us sell our product. And being drastically less expensive than Microsoft and Oracle gives us a huge competitive edge over other vendors."
Mark Trigsted, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Sysware Healthcare Systems, Inc.
About Sysware Healthcare Systems, Inc.
Sysware Healthcare Systems, Inc., based in Farmington Hills, Mich., is a leading healthcare information system solution provider. It designs, develops and supports PowerLAB, a fully integrated laboratory information system (LIS) suite that empowers reference, hospital and public health labs to achieve higher levels of productivity and efficiency. It is one of, if not the most reliable solution in the industry today with an unprecedented 99.7 percent uptime guarantee. As a small to mid-sized business, Sysware must offer the most reliable, functional and cost-effective solution in order to compete with larger vendors.
Business Challenge
Seventy-five to 85 percent of all data in a hospital is clinical. Due to its critical nature, the healthcare industry is often slow to replace legacy data management systems that have a proven track record. Such is a challenge for Sysware. According to Mark Trigsted, vice president of sales and marketing for Sysware, "A major hurdle we face on a regular basis is the MUMPS legacy system many healthcare providers are still using." For its time - the 1970s - the bulky system was extremely fast but not relational. "To fix this, some have upgraded it with the Cache solution to run Windows around the database and even Oracle, but this does not solve the limitations with the core MUMPS technology," he added. The same replacement hesitation holds true for those hospitals, clinics and labs running other legacy systems.
In order to make headway into this market, Sysware must offer an alternative to legacy systems that won't compromise the data and will prove itself worthy of the transition. In this healthcare industry, keeping costs down while ensuring data integrity and instant access are vital for any solution to be embraced.
The Pervasive Solution
Since its founding in 1989, Sysware has relied on the technology behind Pervasive to create its ground-breaking solutions. More than 50 clients in the United States and Canada rely upon its most current offering, PowerLAB.
Developed using Pervasive.SQL, Sysware PowerLAB consists of three elements - the core application, lab specialty applications, and productivity enhancements - which are all part of the same database. When a client wishes to utilize any module beyond the core application, they simply purchase access and it is instantly activated. Unlike the competition, which sells versions of these modules separately, PowerLAB is one contiguous data model with nothing else to install. This enables all customers and their applications to be maintained and upgraded across the board, with no hassle on either end.
To go head-to-head with legacy systems, "Pervasive has helped us make PowerLAB one of the most advanced solutions on the market that completely leapfrogs existing solutions and the competition in terms of functionality and reliability," Trigsted said. "Instead of offering inefficient and cumbersome add-ons to systems such as MUMPS, our solution is completely new and streamlined," he continued.
According to Trigsted, part of Sysware's superiority comes from the benefits provided by Pervasive.SQL, such as:
- Performance - Perhaps the biggest benefit for Sysware's solution is its high performance, which is directly related to database performance. For if the database did not perform at the highest levels possible, the entire solution would be compromised. In fact, an independent study conducted by Sysware benchmarked Pervasive.SQL against the performance levels of Microsoft and Oracle with Pervasive leading the pack.
- Ease of installation - the system can be installed in six to eight weeks compared to the competitions' six to nine months.
- Extendability - the ability to create unique custom applications for clients without compromising the application as a whole. The custom system can still be upgraded at the same time as other clients.
- Low Administration - Pervasive.SQL does not require a database administrator on site, unlike Oracle.
- Low Total Cost of Ownership - Pervasive.SQL requires very little administration and maintenance, making its cost of ownership remarkably low.
- Reliability - Known for its extreme reliability, Pervasive.SQL has enabled Sysware to claim not one day lost due to downtime on any of its installed solutions after 13 years of operations, a feat the competition can not claim.
- Scalability - Sysware is able to install PowerLAB into small labs with one or two instruments up to the largest networks of hospitals with thousands - without compromising functionality.
Bottom Line
After 13 years, Sysware has built a business on an outstanding reputation for world-class products. It has only been in the past couple of years that Sysware has begun actively marketing its solutions; its previous sales were all based on word-of-mouth. One client who has helped cement Sysware's reputation as a best-of-class healthcare information system solution provider is the State of Alabama Public Health System. The Pervasive-based solution has helped turn the entire state health organization into a paperless lab system. Every test and result is maintained in a secure and reliable database, including requisitions from other systems. The advanced database also enables functionality not seen before such as image and voice recognition integration.
"Pervasive.SQL's added benefits truly help us sell our product. And being drastically less expensive than Microsoft and Oracle gives us a huge competitive edge over other vendors. They're such an invaluable partner that I couldn't image our solution without them," Trigsted said. "Out of habit, some potential clients ask for Oracle or Microsoft. We say sure, that can be done but it will take four more months, be more expensive and you won't have the same speed or performance levels. Why not stick with Pervasive? In the end, they always agree and go with Pervasive."
Sysware has also taken a new approach to selling the Pervasive database that offers flexibility in the sales cycle; they encourage clients to develop buying relationships directly with Pervasive. Trigsted explained, "We tell them the system requirements and leave it up to the client to buy what they need from Pervasive. This saves them any markup we would add and frees a lot of our resources to concentrate on other business-critical areas instead of hardware and license updates. After that, the fact that they're running Pervasive never comes up because it's such a smooth, reliable system. Like a phone, its always there when they need it; they don't have to think about how it works, they just know that it does, and that reflects on our solution as a whole."
For more information
To learn more about Pervasive Software and our solutions, please visit www.pervasive.com. To reach the North American sales office, call 1.800.287.4383, extension 2. For Latin, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand, call +1.512.231.6000. In Europe, for Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, call +800.12.12.34.34. For any other European, Middle Eastern, African or Asian countries (excluding Japan), call +32.70.23.37.61. For Japan, please call +81.3.3293.5300, or visit www.pervasive.co.jp.
