How a major cancer center modernized IT to improve patient care

“Digital first” has become a mantra across many industries, but in health care, the stakes for technology transformation couldn’t be higher. Health care providers are being challenged to accommodate evolving patient demands such as telehealth, smart medical devices and applications for conveniently scheduling and communicating with doctors and viewing test results online. But these digital interactions rely on systems that must be integrated and secured — or they could impact patient experiences and expose sensitive personal and financial data to cyber threats.

One of the largest cancer centers and research institutes in the US faced this complex balance between innovation and patient care. The organization wanted to lead with digital capabilities to meet the real-time needs of thousands of faculty and staff across dozens of hospitals and clinics responsible for delivering critical care to cancer patients.

To help enable better decision-making and provide digitally enabled tech services, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) of the cancer center envisioned an IT modernization plan, focused on improving workflows, making core IT data more consistent and reliable across the organization and using automation to promote collaboration.

ServiceNow, a central technology system, would be the cloud-based platform underpinning this digital transformation. Starting with streamlining their enterprise IT functions as the first part of core enablement, the organization had a digital vision to expand services and efficiencies across the enterprise to create a more cohesive organization — and they needed an experienced implementation partner.

They chose Ernst & Young LLP (EY), ServiceNow’s 2024 Global Elite Partner of the Year, to seamlessly implement the platform across systems, integrated with proper risk management protocols and customized to meet industry standards. The EY-ServiceNow alliance and an EY team of sector-focused professionals would guide and accelerate the multi-year journey — all to help the organization serve their patients faster, make better informed decisions through data, protect important personal information and with the hope to support thousands of people in their fight against cancer. 

Underpinned by security and service management across IT and OT domains, ServiceNow was selected to be the foundation that EY teams would deploy for this cancer center as the first step on their digital journey.

“ServiceNow offers a human-centered, experience-driven approach to technological innovation combined with the operational agility that large health care entities require. It can incorporate AI and automation throughout systems as well as modernize and link workflows for a more intuitive and frictionless experience for clinicians and patients,” says Jatin Rajpal, EY ServiceNow Leader.

Before deployment began (in Phase 0), EY teams thoughtfully assessed the organization’s original technical landscape and held focus groups with employees to understand which systems were complementing operational needs and which were not. The analysis focused on client enablement and organizational readiness for the IT transformation. EY teams analyzed short- and long-term needs and mapped them to potential end-to-end enterprise service management models. They identified a team of stakeholders within the organization to help with change adoption and buy-in and created a phased communication plan to keep the business aligned with rollout plans.

Based on that analysis, EY teams collaborated with client leadership to design a strategic vision and identified key IT priorities, informing a multi-year roadmap. For this cancer center, success meant freeing up valuable time for physicians and clinical staff that could then be redirected to effectively helping as many patients as possible. To support that goal, EY teams designed a phased IT roadmap alongside a governance framework to help successfully deliver and sustain this ServiceNow implementation. EY teams helped the client to design and onboard a Center of Excellence, this group of stakeholders would own the roadmap, drive the governance process and keep the platform secure, scalable and compliant.

When the technology rollout began, ServiceNow was first deployed as a base IT platform to support the company’s IT infrastructure and then configured across key capabilities such as IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Operations Management and Project Portfolio Management. EY teams tailored the tool so that this cancer center was operating with leading health care industry practices and standards, while remaining compliant to the industry process standards such as Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

Phase 1 of the engagement focused on streamlining and standardizing ITSM systems, platform consolidation and integration rationalization. With so many unintegrated tools and applications, the users and IT analysts were depleting a lot of time submitting, tracking and resolving IT issues.

One example of this successful platform consolidation is that the cancer center had been using a tool called EPIC, an enterprise resource planning system for managing electronic medical records (EMRs). The EY team seamlessly integrated ServiceNow with EPIC, making it easier for clinicians to submit and track IT issues within the tool, providing a unified self-service portal for end users to submit and track the status of IT requests.

In Phase 2, EY teams focused on optimizing current implementation and enabling new ServiceNow platform features, streamlining the demand and project management process for IT and the clinical PMO. We expanded ServiceNow capabilities so that project requests would fall within one system, where they could all be reviewed and approved. Thanks to increased visibility and reporting, the business could better prioritize requests based on their alignment with organizational needs.

Equipped with one streamlined platform integrated across IT systems, this leading cancer center is entering the next generation of health care — with physicians, nurses and academics saving valuable time better spent on serving patients and performing leading-edge research.

Today, IT integration and processes at the center have greatly improved. IT tickets have been dramatically reduced, technological incident EMR reports have declined and medical staff are reportedly saving time when creating and updating medical records. This is because the integrated ServiceNow platform stores data more securely in the cloud and the organization is more efficiently meeting Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) privacy compliance than they were when using multiple disparate platforms.

Digital assets — including patient mobile apps, single system sign-ons, research software and lab systems — now function on one platform, making it easier for patients and the doctors who serve them. There is more accountability across the organization, with one platform providing regular status updates and alerts as needed. The system’s reporting and analytics functions bring together data simply and intuitively, offering multiple customizable metrics reports. Improved reporting capabilities gives leadership the visibility needed so it’s easier for them to note patient trends for cancer prevention and research.

Notable operational improvements seen within this cancer center’s IT systems include:

• All IT tickets and requests are now logged within ServiceNow, creating a baseline for IT performance management.
• Efficiency and time savings have improved for IT users through mobile apps.
• End users are empowered to manage their own work through self-service offerings, increasing user satisfaction.
• Centralized Configuration Management Database helps establish a baseline for service awareness.
• Streamlined project review and approval process within one system better informs leadership so they can make more strategic business decisions and approve priority projects faster.

The next step on this cancer center’s digital journey (Phase 3) is to expand the ServiceNow footprint into Security Operations and Asset Management, as well as consolidate and modernize other non-IT functions such as Supply Chain Management and Human Resources. With each new ServiceNow module that is successfully implemented, the more time the organization will save — and allot the newfound efficiency toward medical prevention and research programs, all in the pursuit of eliminating cancer.