CIO — About a year ago, John Glaser was in the hospital. Not an unusual place to find the vice president and CIO of Partners HealthCare System, a Boston-based company that manages 10 Massachusetts hospitals. But this time, Glaser was there to visit his wife. She had just undergone knee surgery and lay in the recovery room, emerging from her anesthesia fog. Suddenly one of her physicians stepped into the room and introduced himself. However, before Glaser could thank him for his work, the physician thanked the CIO for his. He recognized Glaser as one of the primary architects behind the hospital’s provider order entry system (POES), an electronic check-and-balance system that warns doctors when their prescribed medications or tests might cause adverse reactions in patients (see "The Rx Files," Nov. 1, 2000). This homegrown system, first implemented at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1993, has demonstrably improved patient care, cut health-care costs and was a 1996 Enterprise Value Awards winner. Partners is now planning to roll it out throughout their entire multihospital system. Smiling, the physician told Glaser, "I just want you to know that your system has really saved my ass a few times."
How’s that for a testament to long-term value? Technologically, the Windows NT-based client/server system isn’t particularly impressive—not when compared to some of today’s dazzling, state-of-the-art telemedicine systems. But strategically, as a means of improving medical care, POES has no peers. "This is one of those systems that feeds on itself," Glaser says.
POES is not alone. In taking a fresh look at some of the past award winners, we found several that continue years later to bring noteworthy value to their host companies. Some, like POES, don’t employ bleeding-edge technologies, but still deliver competitively differentiating results. Others, such as SBC Communications’ Easy Access Sales Environment (EASE), a 1999 winner, have grown beyond their parent companies to become industry standards. Then there are those such as Black & Veatch’s PowrTrak information system, a 1998 winner, which continues to evolve with emerging technologies and changing times.
Of course, as the complementary bars of emerging technologies and business-IT collaboration have been raised, some past winners don’t look so remarkable today. Take SINet (which is Schlumberger’s Information Network), for instance—a 1997 Enterprise Value Awards winner. This intranet was remarkable when Schlumberger applied for the award in 1996 and unique when the global manufacturing and technology services company pioneered it in 1985. Judged on its own merits, SINet probably wouldn’t win an award today—intranets are ubiquitous in business now. Yet, the business-IT collaboration that resulted in that system has helped SINet evolve into a business backbone that has brought Schlumberger new efficiencies, cost savings and a new network services line of business. The initial SINet success and its subsequent evolution have helped cultivate a risk-taking attitude among Schlumberger’s top decision makers. "We took two or three risks at the right time, like building [SINet] on TCP/IP in 1992," says Jean Chevallier, Schlumberger’s vice president of IT. "And we continue to take risks today."
