Health Care & Medical: Tech Innovation Keeps The Doctor In

In addition to integrating some of the company's sales systems and migrating others to fewer platforms, Cardinal is working to make it easier for customers to do business with its multiple areas. Cardinal.com, the company's E-commerce portal, lets customers order products online, receive single orders that include products from multiple Cardinal businesses, and receive a single invoice. This all helps in the com- pany's mission to present a more integrated face to customers, Davids says. A dashboard feature was recently added to the portal, allowing "C-level" health-care executives to better track spending related to Cardinal's myriad businesses.

Cardinal also is focused on improving internal efficiencies by better managing its IT infrastructure, including data centers, networks, and desktops, Davids says. For instance, over the next year or so, the company will consolidate eight to 10 data centers into three primary centers, and it plans to make better use of server capacity.

INDUSTRY LEADERS Rank Company Revenue in millions Income (loss)
in millions IT
employees 1 Owens & Minor Inc. $3,960 $47 180 2 Cardinal Health Inc. $51,136 $1,056 1,670 37 UPMC Health System $4,000 -- 700 46 St. Joseph Health System $2,514 -- 310 52 Kindred Healthcare Inc. $3,358 $35 371 53 Sutter Health $5,300 -- 925 85 Baxter International Inc. $8,110 $1,033 1,413 102 Texas Health Resources Inc. $1,700 -- 257 122 CareGroup Healthcare System $1,200 -- 300 149 Quest Diagnostics Inc. $4,108 $322 1,473 158 Fairview Health Services $1,600 -- 455 176 Express Scripts Inc. $12,261 $203 350 178 Tenet Healthcare Corp. $13,900 $785 550 195 Universal Health Services Inc. $3,259 $175 340 209 Sun Healthcare Group Inc. $1,900 $1,047 110 213 Sisters of Mercy Health System -- -- 179 261 Laboratory Corp. of America $2,508 $255 1,000 267 Dade Behring Inc. $1,282 $350 210 277 HealthPartners -- -- 400 289 Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corp. -- -- 4,100 321 Inova Health System -- -- 200 357 Catholic Healthcare West $5,000 $51 590 380 Baptist Health System Inc. -- -- 130 413 Baylor Health Care Systems $2,071 $80 355 418 Oncology Therapeutics Network -- -- 60 446 Geisinger Health System $1,200 -- 280 466 Community Health System Inc. $2,200 $100 270 Financial data is from public sources and company supplied.
Revenue is for latest fiscal year.
Employee data is from InformationWeek 500 qualifying survey.

SNAPSHOT INSIDE COMPANIES Average portion of revenue spent on IT 3% Average percentage of industry applications and business processes that have Web-based front ends 40% Companies with real-time business processes in place 89% HOW COMPANIES DIVIDE THEIR IT BUDGETS Hardware purchases 19% Services or outsourcing 16% Research and development 6% Salaries and benefits 27% Applications 20% Everything else 12% INDUSTRY FINANCIALS Average year-over-year revenue change 15% Average year-over-year net-income change 40% DATA: INFORMATIONWEEK RESEARCH
See year-over-year shifts in business-technology practices for this industry. Compare and contrast this year's data with last year's.

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