Scenic Bluffs Community Health Centers is a private, nonprofit organization with multiple sites throughout Wisconsin. As a Federally Qualified Health Center, it offers a full range of medical, dental, chiropractic, behavioral health, health education, and pharmacy services in medically underserved areas. More than 7,500 people from primarily four counties rely on Scenic Bluffs for their primary care.

Situation
Scenic Bluffs struggled to address its growing technology needs and establish a meaningful IT plan. The organization’s IT infrastructure was fragmented and insufficient to support its varied applications, multiple locations, and numerous users. Like many nonprofits, Scenic Bluffs did not carry deep technical expertise in-house, leaving the organization with a mostly reactionary approach to issues management and a reliance on external IT providers. The IT responsibilities fell to the accounting executive, who was forced to split priorities. After disappointing relationships with three different IT providers, the organization sought a more trusted partnership, which it found with Wipfli.

Strategy
After assessing the organization’s needs and overall technology environment, Wipfli created a comprehensive technology plan to support Scenic Bluffs’ strategic priorities. As part of the plan, the firm revealed the various root causes of several critical issues. Scenic Bluffs agreed to address the issues, and Wipfli then set out to correct the problems, one at a time, including numerous lingering issues. Among the ways Wipfli helped were:

• Assisting with the deployment, maintenance, and monitoring of hardware.
• Addressing and fixing network connectivity in all of the organization’s various locations.
• Resolving persistent printing issues.
• Ensuring new electronic medical records software functioned and was accessible on all servers, backups, and computers accordingly.
• Providing planning and advice to the new leader of the IT department.
• Onboarding and acclimating the organization’s new information systems specialist.

Benefits
Scenic Bluffs has traded its reactive and costly approach to IT for a proactive and more productive one. It now has peace of mind knowing that all systems are working, servers are patched, and networks are being maintained. Its information is now more secure and accessible to all users, and its networks are more reliable.

The improved IT environment also has created a more productive staff by permitting more time to focus on value-added services, allowing for more patients to be served and generating greater opportunities to serve more of the community’s population. Scenic Bluffs can now focus on introducing new services. It also can spend its IT dollars much more strategically. The executive team and board of directors have a plan and a corresponding budget for the next three years, defined by project priorities. They can therefore make informed decisions far enough in advance to properly prepare, both financially and operationally.

Relationship Executive(s)

Michael T. Pynch, CPA, CMA, Chief information officer, Partner