The People-Ready Business
Case Study
LifeNet Health
Biomedical Alloengineering Organization Uses High
Technology to Provide High Touch Service
LifeNet Health prides itself on its safe, efficient, and compassionate service to
donors’ families, to patients, and to the healthcare professionals who perform
life enhancing or lifesaving transplants using LifeNet Health allografts. To
honor that commitment and improve operational efficiencies, management
replaced one IT system and upgraded another to create a single Microsoft®
business management solution that integrates order entry, distribution, and
financial functions. LifeNet Health staff use the solution to find the
information they need to gain a better understanding of the business, to work
more productively, and to provide better service.
OVERVIEW
Country or Region
United States
Industry
Healthcare
Customer Profile
Based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, LifeNet
Health is a biomedical alloengineering
organization that employs more than 500
people. LifeNet Health’s mission is saving
lives and restoring health.
Business Situation
LifeNet Health needed to consolidate
disparate IT solutions that impeded the flow
of information and forced employees to
perform manual workarounds to ensure data
integrity.
The People-Ready Business Case Study
Solution
LifeNet Health deployed a Microsoft®
business management solution to integrate
business processes that cross finance,
customer service, inventory, order
processing, and distribution departments.
“The essence of a well-oiled
organization is the smooth
flow of information and
streamlined business
processes, and that’s what
our Microsoft business
management software
provides.”
Benefits

Standardized, simplified sales process

Anticipated 10 percent boost in sales

Better sales reporting

Better business intelligence

Revenue growth through customer
cross-sell
Partner
BroadPoint Technologies
Doug Wilson
Executive Vice President
LifeNet Health
1
The People-Ready Business
Situation
Founded in 1982 and headquartered in
Virginia Beach, Virginia, LifeNet Health is a
leading biomedical alloengineering
organization and organ and tissue donation
agency. Since 1995, more than 1.5 million
allografts have been distributed with a 100percent safety record.
Saving Lives and Restoring Health
LifeNet Health employees embody the
values of the organization itself: they want to
improve the quality of life for people who
face challenging health issues, and they
serve the families of both donors and
recipients with compassion. Executive Vice
President Doug Wilson joined LifeNet Health
because he was fascinated by the good that
the organization can do for people: “the
ability to turn tragedy into triumph.” Robin
Cowherd, Director of Donor Family
Services, had similar motives. He turned his
volunteer experience counseling families in
crisis through the Stephens Ministry into
LifeNet Health’s comprehensive
bereavement support program for families of
organ and tissue donors.
“What we do at LifeNet Health is high
technology with high touch,” says Wilson.
The term “high touch” refers to putting in
extra effort by being in frequent contact with
people and engaging them in ways that
qualify as special treatment. “While I am
responsible for business development, I
never forget that we work for the benefit of
the patient. Everything we do comes from a
donated gift from a person who is deceased.
It’s a compelling story that keeps you
motivated.”
Frederic Peycelon, Senior Director of
Marketing, adds, “We are a very missiondriven. Being a not-for-profit organization
restricts our ability to raise money, so we
have to be disciplined about profit and
margins. In a sense, our funding comes
The People-Ready Business Case Study
from ourselves, through the efficiency of our
operations.”
Using Disparate Systems and
Manual Processes
However, LifeNet Health’s disparate, aging
IT environment did not support efficient
operations because it forced employees to
switch from one system to another to
accomplish everyday tasks. LifeNet Health
had different software solutions for finance,
sales order entry, and distribution. “We
needed to find a business management
solution that would consolidate these
systems,” says Wilson.
In the client services department, Cardio
Vascular Account Coordinator Dominic
Hamlett takes orders from long-term
customers whose telephone numbers he
knows “like the back of my hand.” If a
customer wanted to verify pricing on an
allograft but only had the invoice number,
Hamlett would have to call accounting to get
the answer because his sales order entry
system only referenced allografts by order
tracking numbers. “This could waste a
couple of minutes or a couple of hours,” he
says. “If a surgeon wanted to know what
blood group the donor belonged to, I’d have
to search another database for that
information. It reduced the level of customer
service I could provide.”
Jeanne Sheeley, Accounting Supervisor,
worried about data integrity. “It was easy to
duplicate credits to customers because the
sales order entry system assigned a
tracking number and the accounting system
assigned a different invoice number to the
same allograft. Handling credits and returns
was a pain, because our sales order entry
system didn’t recognize a manual credit as
such, and we had to manually go through
and verify every single credit.”
“I can provide better service
… because I can see the size
of the graft, its price and
availability, and the blood type
and cause of death of the
donor. I have all the
information I need….”
Dominic Hamlett
Vascular Account Coordinator,
LifeNet Health
2
The People-Ready Business
When it came to reporting, LifeNet Health
staff wasted time manually gathering and
combining information from multiple
systems. Easy access to information is
important for tracking the 250,000 allografts
LifeNet Health distributes annually. “We
have to maintain correct temperature and
storage conditions and follow Federal Drug
Administration inventory tracking
requirements,” says Matt Dodge, Director of
Logistics. “We have to know right down to
the individual serial number the entire
transaction history of each graft. Microsoft
Dynamics GP integrates with the tracking
software that we use for shipping so that
customer service can easily access that
information.”
Solution
LifeNet Health’s executives wanted to
provide better technology tools to improve
access to information, streamline processes,
and foster individual productivity. They
reasoned that it would be too difficult to
upgrade the heavily customized sales order
system, and that an upgrade would not
solve the compatibility issue with the
financial solution. “We needed a single
business management solution to integrate
both functions—one that had the scalability
and functionality we needed to carry us
forward,” says Peycelon.
LifeNet Health IT staffers worked with
technology partner BroadPoint Technologies
to find a solution. LifeNet Health had been
using Microsoft® Business Solutions–Great
Plains® version 6.0 for accounting and
purchasing and, together with BroadPoint
Technologies, they upgraded that system to
Microsoft Dynamics™ GP version 9.0.
LifeNet Health used the new system to
combine its original Microsoft software–
based financial solution, with the order
entry, and distribution systems, which
The People-Ready Business Case Study
consolidated data from all of those systems
into one, eliminating the need to search
multiple data silos for allograft inventory
information. Today, LifeNet Health
employees use the new solution to better
manage finance, order processing, and
inventory. The new solution assigns a single
ID number for each order and integrates the
accounting and order entry process so that
Sheeley no longer has to worry about data
integrity.
Employees at LifeNet Health now have
more flexible reporting and analysis tools.
Dodge is taking advantage of the new
solution’s Smart Lists, a query tool he’s
using for locating and exporting inventory
data to spreadsheet software for easier
analysis.
“This new system provides significant
improvements over the previous finance,
order entry, and distribution systems,” says
Wilson. “At LifeNet Health, everything we do
respects the donation, so when we can
improve how efficiently we manage each
donated gift, it’s an opportunity to make
good on our mission to save lives and
restore health.”
Benefits
Today, employees at LifeNet Health are
performing key processes using a single
solution for finance, sales, and distribution.
“The essence of a well-oiled organization is
the smooth flow of information and
streamlined business processes, and that’s
what our Microsoft business management
software provides,” says Wilson. “Now that
we have the same way of naming and
tracking inventory within one system, it’s
easier to share information between the
accounting and customer service
departments. When it comes to monitoring
inventory and integrating our order entry and
Executive Biography
Doug Wilson received his B.A. degree
from Virginia Wesleyan College in
Norfolk. He started working in
transplantation as a manager for a
blood center and joined LifeNet Health
in 1989. Doug began as a field
representative and went on to
establish the marketing and sales
departments. Today, he is Executive
Vice President. Doug has received the
Public Relations Society of America
Medallion award.
3
The People-Ready Business
Customer Details:
financial departments, this solution has
greatly enhanced our abilities.”
Better Reporting Imp roves
Business Insight
Employees using the new business
management solution at LifeNet Health are
taking advantage of improved reporting
capabilities and a single source of up-todate information to gain a better
understanding of the business. Using the
more flexible reporting tool, Peycelon can
better track the efficacy of sales
representatives and business partners by
assigning more than one territory to each
hospital client, a capability he didn’t have
before. Sheeley can now analyze her
receivables to learn more about purchase
order problems on invoices and customers’
paying habits to improve cash flow and
collections. “It used to take me 15 minutes
to calculate the day’s outstanding sales, but
now I click a button and it’s done in less
than 10 seconds,” she says.
operating table exactly what size of bio
implant he will need. So we send a variety of
sizes, and he returns the ones he doesn’t
use,” explains Peycelon. “This is a
marketing advantage for us, but it used to
be big headache for customer service
representatives to manually approve every
credit once the unused allografts had been
returned and deemed intact. Today, the
approval is automatically processed, saving
at least 25 percent of one customer service
rep’s time.”
Easy Access to Business
Information Improves Customer
Service
In the customer service department, Hamlett
can quickly answer his customers’ questions
because he no longer has to search through
different databases for information. “I can
provide better service over the phone
because I can see the size of the graft, its
price and availability, and the blood type and
cause of death of the donor. I have all the
information I need at my fingertips.”
“Moving to [Microsoft] Dynamics GP
combined finance, sales, and distribution on
one system, so we could have better
information flow and reporting from the
same data source,” says Dodge. “This way
we can all work together to improve our
understanding of the business using the
same data. I use the Smart List and the
ability to add fields to my queries to gain a
much better understanding of our inventory.
Now I’m tracking why grafts are returned,
how many are on hold, and their credit
statuses.”
LifeNet Health
Phone: (800) 847-7831
Web site: www.lifenethealth.org
Partner Details:
BroadPoint Technologies
Phone: (888) 920-2784
Web site: www.broadpoint.net
The People-Ready Business.
A people-ready business is one
where people can apply their
unique skills, insights, and
experience to create new products
and services, work responsively
with customers and partners, and
drive operational excellence in
every aspect of the business.
People-ready businesses support
people with knowledge, practices,
and tools so that they can add the
extra value that helps differentiate
successful organizations in a
competitive, fast-moving global
economy.
For more information on The
People-Ready Business, go to:
www.microsoft.com/peopleready
Software & Services
Microsoft Dynamics GP
Microsoft Office Excel
Automated Business Processes
Increases Productivit y
Peycelon is impressed with the way the new
business solution automates the approval of
returns and credits. “For some procedures,
like spinal surgery, the surgeon doesn’t
know until he has the patient on the
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published June 2007
The People-Ready Business Case Study
4