"Carrie Medical Services (CMS) started out as a family practice at Doncaster, Victoria, with a clinic comprising 2 receptionists and 4 doctors. Tom Carrie serves with 2 of his sons, Jack and Jim and his daughter Mary. Jack, Jim and Mary were encouraged to expand the practice, and today, they have 6 clinics in Melbourne. The good thing about CMS is that only 50% appointments are accepted. Patients call in to the clinic of choice from looking up the directory. Therefore, walk-in patients can come into Carrie, and these patients are seen on a first come-first-served basis. Their practice is jam-packed most mornings but varies in the afternoons. First-time Patients are asked to fill in a new patient form, and the details from the forms are transferred to a card file, and this is used by doctors for recording their diagnosis and prognosis. Upon completion of the consultation, the patient will then proceed to pay at the counter. The receptionist will look up a fee schedule and charge each patient accordingly. Patients have to pay in full either by card or cash, and they are given a receipt. If they have a Medicare card, the patients can go to the Medicare centre to claim the rebate. Card payments are processed using an EFT Payment machine. The receipt is printed off the EFT payment machine. Almost all payment is made by credit/debit card. If cash payments are made, the cash is kept in a box in a drawer. At the end of every week, a freelance bookkeeper comes to the clinic to develop the general ledger. At the end of each financial year, the general ledgers from the clinic are taken by a corporate accountant who develop the annual financial statements. This usually costs them about $500 per month for bookkeeping and $5000 per annum for corporate accounting services.

1 year ago, Tom started night consultations. The doctors take a turn to go on call for specific nights. However, doctors have to go back to the clinic to collect the patient card for existing patients. This means that sometimes it can take more than 30 minutes for a doctor to show up at the patient's house. Tom Carrie has been happy with the business growth and level of business. However, recently he has discovered that his business profitability is lower compared to medical practices of similar size and level of business. These competitors do not even have the night practice, which Tom started 1 year ago. One of the competitors that CMS is closely watching is Care Family Practice http://www.carefamilypractice.com.au/ General Information CMS is not sure about how many active and passive patients they have. The EFT device is only used for payment. No bill is given to the customer, but a receipt from the EFT device. If the customer asks for a bill, the receptionist uses a bill stationery booklet to make a written bill. Cash payments are put inside a cashbox. There is no cash register or POS device used. Some competitive clinics offer bulk billing for normal medical consultations (customer does not pay, but clinic bills medicare) but CMS does not currently do that. They expect the customer to pay first, and put in a claim, but this payment method is not popular with some customers. Majority of customers pay either by cash (20%) or credit card (80%). The clinic does not give personal credit. There were several incidences of customers who did not have enough cash and could not pay. The clinic is not able to track, and follow-up on these as these are recorded in the patient card files. The receptionist makes the purchase of medical supplies upon the request of the doctor in charge of the clinic. If purchasing was streamlined, it would be better. All these receipts, orders for medical supplies, payments are kept in several folders, which are then retrieved by the bookkeeper each week, who records all these details into the general ledger. The bookkeeper usually spends 2-3 hours per week on bookkeeping. CMS prefers that accounting to be automated and integrated to the patient administration system. CMS has no website.

Vision and goals The Carrie family is considering opening 3 more clinics in 3 different suburbs in Melbourne in 6 months. They would like to set up larger clinics which can house 6 doctors. They expect the revenue in the new clinics to be the same as existing clinics and from year 2 a ramp-up of revenue on a 10% pa basis. This is due to decreased stationery costs, supplies costs (lower wastage), bookkeeping costs (which the vendor should provide through integrated accounting solution, and obviously better customer reach and increased efficiency. There are over 4000 patient's records in folders, but some patients are inactive. If CMS can find out the details of actual active patients, it would be better. Each clinic has approximately 60 patients daily on weekdays and 30 patients on Saturdays. They expect a growth of at least 10% in patients at existing clinics with the new systems. They also expect at least 100 patients daily in the new clinics. Targeted patient growth incremental 2000 active patients across all clinics in 1 year. Business processes Patients call to book an appointment by looking up the clinic number from yellow pages. The patient needs to find the telephone number of the correct location, as each location has a different telephone number. There are 4 consultation rooms and 1 minor surgery room in each existing clinic. There are usually 4 doctors working at the clinic, and this is scheduled out between the 4 Carries and some paid doctors. The 2 receptionists come in on most days. The operating hours are 9 am-6 pm Monday to Friday and 9 am-1 pm on Saturday. During after hours, each doctor takes a turn to be on call. Usually, 1 doctor is designated per week. The patient calls a call service. The call service then pages the doctor who has been designated. The doctor returns the call and clarifies on patient details with the caller. If he is able to establish basic information (eg. Allergies etc) from the caller, he proceeds straight to the location. Otherwise, he may have to go back to the clinic to get the patient card. The doctor also assesses when the call is made if an ambulance should be called. Patients are typically billed after the event. The patient recording system is largely manual. The cardboard files are kept for each patient, and additional pages are clipped onto it where required. The reception has to ensure that the filing system is orderly. There are instances where a patient card is misplaced, although it is rare and the patient has to be kept waiting. Each time a patient consultation starts, the doctor has to flip and scan through previous treatment history prior to diagnosis and prognosis. Tom has engaged your company to examine CMS's business, to assess the operational effectiveness and develop an innovative solution which will help them increase their competitive advantage and profitability. Tom has allocated $90,000 for the IT solution. They expect this to be able to support all the existing clinics and new clinics."

Problem Description What is the problem/ opportunity and idea for the solution? System Capabilities What are the capabilities the new system will have? Helps define the scope Business Benefits The benefits that accrue to the organization Tangible in terms of dollars and intangible benefits e.g customers satisfactions