The Challenge
“Our goal is to spend as little time doing the paper work, and as much time with patients and families...”

Established in 1984, Arbor Hospice, a nonprofit healthcare organization, is dedicated to providing care to seriously ill patients and their families throughout southeastern Michigan. They care for people of all ages—from infants to the elderly—with a team of trained caregivers. According to CEO Gloria Brooks, Arbor Hospice's goal is to “spend as little time doing the paper work, and as much time with patients and families. The more we can make it easier for our staff to use [technology], it gives them more time to do what's really important which is seeing patients and families.”

When Arbor Hospice first engaged NEW, the organization had 250 email accounts spread across two different systems hosted on aging server hardware and software that crashed sporadically resulting in extended periods of email downtime. Consequently, a great deal of staff time and resources were spent managing the ailing email system. Further complicating things were the lack of shared calendars that enabled staff to do simple tasks such as scheduling meetings and resource sharing to reserve conference rooms or checkout company equipment. Reflecting on the limitations of their old platform, Ms. Brooks remarks “our resource planning is a good example of literally a process that used to be manual. We used to have a notebook that was the checkout system for all of our conference rooms...not the most efficient way to handle rooms.”

The Solution
“We were pretty paralyzed there for a couple of days when our old system crashed. So, it was wonderful that NEW was able to help us...”

Understanding that Arbor Hospice needed a robust solution to replace their troublesome email system that could be implemented and managed easily, NEW recommended its email service based on Zimbra, an open source email and collaboration software. NEW's email service looks like a traditional email client but works in a web browser, allowing users the flexibility to access their email, calendars, and much more from virtually any place that has an Internet connection. This solution was particularly fitting given that Arbor Hospice's system literally crashed days before NEW was scheduled to migrate them to a new email platform. “We were pretty paralyzed there for a couple of days when our old system crashed. So, it was wonderful that NEW was able to help us make the switch that much quicker and get everybody over to the new system.”

The Impact
“It's a great tool, and a good example of how far we came from the old pencil and paper to this new process where I can get three things done at the same time.”

After the transition to NEW's email service, all 250 Arbor Hospice email users were on the same system, enabling them to work collaboratively and share information in ways not permitted by their previous email setup. The new system “obviously stands out above the rest, because your going to host it for us, the cost is manageable, it fits within our budget, its a product that can do everything that we ask it to do,” comments Krista Newman, Director of Information Systems & Technology.

Now, the staff can schedule meetings, share appointments, assign and track the progress of tasks, and manage resources like conference rooms and projectors. What's more is that the new email platform is securely hosted and managed offsite, freeing up staff time to focus on non-email related issues. CEO Gloria Brooks lauds the NEW's email service, saying “it's a great tool, and a good example of how far we came from the old pencil and paper to this new process where I can get three things done at the same time.”