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S O F T W A R E
S O L U T I O N
costs of server maintenance and software upgrades.
For example, the initial capital outlay for keeping servers in-house is
what originally drove us to the cloud. You'll spend at least $10,000 to
$12,000 for a server, and will need a dedicated, climate-controlled
space to house it, which can be a waste of valuable surgical real
estate. The next expense to consider is the electronic health record
software. Our software vendor quoted an upfront price of $125,000.
That doesn't account for the expense of purchasing subsequent software upgrades — ours has been upgraded 3 times since going live in
October, which gives you a sense of how often software upgrades can
occur. With in-house computing, centers have to pay for each of these
software upgrades, which involve additional tech support, downtime
and the expense of implementation.
You must also consider the maintenance
costs to keep a server
up and running. In
addition, you will
need to deal with the
constant threat of
server failure, which
often occurs without
warning, and the
investment of upgrading the server every 3
to 4 years. You'll need
to pay an IT professional — in a consulting role or as a fulltime employee — to
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | J U N E 2013
