From the Ground Up

Stories from the GoComputek Team

DG Testimonial Photo
Dennys Gonzalez, Senior Developer - Provider Network Solutions
As a software developer, I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with GoComputek for the last 4 years. Throughout this time, the healthcare company I work for, Provider Network Solutions, has enjoyed the outstanding, speedy service that this information technology company offers its customers. I have witnessed how GoComputek modernizes and grows the technology infrastructure of a small healthcare company at a very rapid pace and without risking any aspect of a high-end HIPPA compliant environment. GoComputek has revolutionized the day-to-day productivity of our company by implementing cutting-edge technology that speeds up operations, reduces labor intense work, and drastically cuts down cost.

Category:

Rebuild

Industry:

Healthcare

Title:

From the Ground Up

PNS Conference Room

Provider Network Solutions (PNS) is a full-service specialty health care management company with over 20 years of industry experience and a proven track record of success. They work as a business extension for health plans and physicians’ practices, bringing some of the area’s best specialists to regional health plans and connecting healthcare providers to new patients seeking specialty care. PNS assists both health plans and healthcare providers by controlling costs for the former and expanding the client base for the latter. Their creative problem-solving for both parties allows prospective patients to access life-saving healthcare at a fraction of the price.

PNS’s experienced analysts study healthcare trends, business operations and practice management styles across the healthcare market in order to help their clients implement cost containment, risk mitigation and quality management strategies that save them time and money. Their proven track record has garnered them partnerships and alliances spanning across both health plans and healthcare providers, including AvMed, Humana, Magellan, WellCare, Florida Blue, Coventry-Aetna and over 600 of the region’s best specialty care providers.

Success, however, leaves no room for complacency. As the healthcare market shifts and grows, every dollar in healthcare has to work harder. So does PNS. PNS has turned to technology to provide its partners (health plans and physician offices) with innovative, quality-driven, cost-effective, business solutions to meet their needs and business objectives. For this reason, PNS has partnered with GoComputek to replace their entire IT infrastructure with a modern, secure and comprehensive solution to help them accomplish their operational and business objectives.

Q&A
with the GoComputek Team

What is unique about the customer relationship with Provider Network Solutions?
Provider Network Solutions is one of the best run companies we have ever worked with. PNS uses technology in a way that is rivaled only by large corporate environments. They are not wasteful but they also embrace new technologies and welcome change. They empower their staff to be thinkers, not doers and encourage a team approach for solving issues. Their staff is comprised of many talented invdividuals who were first given an opportunity to shine at PNS and, as a result, are grateful and loyal to the company. Combine that with the fact that there is always so much to do at PNS, and it creates the perfect environment for personal and collective success.

When Provider Network Solutions offered us the opportunity to be a part of their team and vision, it was easy to say yes. Their founding principles of delivering five star service while also being dedicated to their staff's needs, has long been a cornerstone and founding principle of our own. There was a lot of common ground we could cover in the way of principles and vision for the future, but there was also a great challenge. Because PNS is an extension of the health plans they service, they have to comply with the same level of regulation and technical scrutiny as the health plans themselves. This changed everything. The health plans are regulated by CMS and CMS's regulations and expectations go well beyond your average-level security standards. We're talking government-grade security for a small healthcare company in Doral. These regulations also meant that PNS's systems could not be offline more than four hours, ever. We wanted in on this project.

Meanwhile, PNS's own vision for the future was ambitious and well-developed. Their internal network and server architecture, however, were archaic. In order to move forward in a meaningful way they needed to migrate their systems to an enterprise-style architecture and infrastructure. This would allow us to better comply with security and CMS's regulations while also allowing us to accomplish the operational goals of the organization. So we got to work on things right away.
What industry-specific solutions has GoComputek brought to Provider Network Solutions?
With a project of this magnitude, a lot. Our first server architecture design involved 13 servers and several virtual LANs. That was foolish of us. Before we were finished, their new infrastructure would be 22 servers and 11 virtual LANs (VLANs) with more to come in the future. Architecting a network design to accommodate this level of computing and a zero margin of error meant a lot of work in planning and coordination. The work would have to be completed in stages.

First, we would need to begin securing and documenting the existing infrastructure. We started with each of the networked devices (Multi-Function Copiers, Printers, PCs, networked scanners, etc.), software licenses, hardware and any existing vendor relationships. Secondly, we moved onto network architecture. We added all the necessary VLANs and started moving their computers and other devices to their respective new VLANs while retaining their current domain membership. With that part done, we were ready to begin migrating their entire network and their five existing servers to a new cloud-ready enterprise-grade domain. This would have to happen over a long weekend and took over two weeks of preparations beforehand. Once that was finished, we only had the firewall and documentation left.

Installing and configuring the world's best firewall in a network this complex would take almost a month and the documentation almost as long. In the end, our masterpiece was finished and it feels good to have been a part of something so magnificent.
What is on the horizon for Provider Network Solutions?
Where do we begin? The plans for the future at PNS are many and all of them grandiose. The development of a robust and advanced data analytics system is currently underway and will be launched on a new cloud-based architecture on Microsoft Azure. The installation of a new hospital claims management system for a new line of business called service line management is coming soon. Lastly, the migration of mission critical systems to a storm-resistant data center with a guaranteed SLA uptime of 100% is also in the works. There's no shortage of IT excellence planned for the near future.

If your business is in need of a technological makeover which will allow you to be more competitive and productive and an IT partner you can trust to deliver, don't wait any longer. Contact us right away for a free quote. Together we can come up with a technological roadmap that will help you accomplish all of your IT goals!

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About GoComputek

GoComputek was founded in January of 2005 with a long-term vision of being a new kind of IT company. A company ready to meet the new and complex technological challenges of our era. A company with a strong commitment to customer service, transparency, innovation and technological excellence. A company who 16 years later is still living up to that vision every day in a bold way. Since then our commitment to IT excellence has only grown in size and scope and so has our company. Over the years, GoComputek has slowly grown to what it is today–a fully mature managed services and cloud services provider that services over 300 endpoints and growing.

For more than 16 years now, GoComputek has been meeting and exceeding customer expectations, in both large and small business environments alike, across all of South Florida. With a special focus on security, efficiency and reliability, we have worked hard to be the best at what we do so that our customers can be the best at what they do. Perhaps what distinguishes us the most from our competition is our ability to adapt to less than ideal circumstances while maintaining a strong commitment to our customers’ success. When failure is not an option, ingenuity is key and our team is up to the challenge.

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