Who Is Prelude?
In 1998 two healthcare providers combined IT forces to improve business using innovative technology.
In 1998, two healthcare providers had similar IT problems. Technology resources were focused on managing infrastructure and not enough time was being spent on new projects that provided business value. Persistently hampered by too many mission-critical technical problems, which resulted in an unstable IT environment, the organizations discovered they did not have the visionary IT leadership in place that aligned with their business strategies.
Both providers had a full compliment of business applications; however, they were not integrated. This caused a significant amount of time to be spent manually entering data into multiple systems. In addition, aging legacy systems had to be replaced because of pending problems with the Year 2000 issue and IT did not have the ability to provide the information management needed to run the business. There were potential compliance issues with the legacy systems and both providers knew they had to expand their business. Both providers knew their IT resources could not support planned business growth. To further complicate matters, there was a pending merger of another large provider by one of the Prelude owners who needed to have all systems integrated within six months.
Prelude’s commitment to this level of support has enabled them to gain one of highest levels of technical certifications from Microsoft.
Prelude Services was created to solve these problems. Both providers realized the best way to deal with their problems was to create a separate IT company to share in the IT improvement implementation costs they had to make. A separate company was also not bound by the provider’s corporate culture and they could focus on getting the job done. Prelude focused its initial efforts on finding the right people and developing IT management procedures so all IT resources provided a consistent level of service and support to all clients. A team of IT specialists was formed who had both technical and industry expertise. Internal resources were also dedicated to custom software design and development that enabled Prelude to integrate financial, billing and clinical systems and create custom reporting tools. Prelude’s commitment to this level of support has enabled them to gain one of highest levels of technical certifications from Microsoft.
After spending several years on the IT needs of their owners, Prelude has started to offer their services to other providers today. Prelude provides full IT support to the provider organizations of Albright Care Services, Continuing Care Rx, Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries, Georgia Association of Homes & Services for the Aging, Lutheran Services In America, Lutheran Network Services of Illinois, PANPHA, Presbyterian Homes in the Presbytery of Huntingdon, PresbyHomes & Services, and Tendercare Michigan, Inc. Prelude also provides full IT support to an institutional pharmacy company, Continuing Care Rx, and the Lutheran World Relief and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service organizations. Prelude also provides an enterprise reporting tool used by providers located in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Michigan, and Oklahoma. The company’s diverse custom software development expertise was recently used by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service organization in their support efforts of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Prelude’s development experience has also been applied to Lutheran Services in America and PANPHA provider associations with their web-based membership services.
