Case Study | Google Apps for Business

Google Apps helps in maximising Ewha Hospital’s reputation as a professional medical institute Organisation Founded in 1985, Ewha Hospital is a medical institute with a focus on obstetrics and gynaecology. Located in Cheonan City, Korea, the hospital has a workforce of around 130 staff, consisting of 120 doctors and nurses and 10 management support staff.

At a Glance What they wanted to do: • Prevent unstable and frequent shutdowns of email server • Surgery operation room booking conflict issues What they used • Gmail • Calendar • Docs What they achieved: • Gmail has enabled staff to make full use of their corporate email • Employees have become more organised with the use of Docs and Calendar • Minimised scheduling conflicts arising from reservation of surgery rooms with the use of Google Calendar • Internal communication among employees has been enhanced by 40% thanks to Google Apps

Challenge Prior to their Google Apps implementation, Ewha Hospital relied on a local company to host their website and email server. Unfortunately, the server was very unstable and Ewha Hospital experienced frequent email server shutdowns. Staff chose instead, to communicate using their personal emails accounts via commercial email services like Daum and Naver. This was messy as staff responded from different email addresses, and did not reflect well on Ewha Hospital’s image as a professional medical institute.

"We are pleased by how Google Apps has truly helped us in facilitating clearer communications among our employees. We hope to further expand our use of Google Apps, such as conducting patient satisfaction surveys for patients using Google Forms. It is our aim to continually improve overall hospital management to better serve our patients and Google Apps is putting us on the map towards becoming a world-class medical institute. We are very excited to see what other benefits we will reap as we continue to use Google Apps." —Mr DK Han, team leader of management support at Ewha Hospital

Solution Against this backdrop and with the recommendation of Mr DK Han, team leader of management support at Ewha Hospital, who had experience using Google Apps, decided to make the switch to Google Apps. The migration was successfully completed in January 2013 with the help of SBC Tech, an authorised reseller of Google Apps in Korea. Result Today, employees can confidently use Gmail to communicate with each other and external parties, without worrying about server breakdowns. In addition, Gmail has enabled staff to effectively maximise their corporate email accounts to set the right tone for Ewha Hospital. “Previously, most employees communicated with each other via their personal emails and were not aware of each other’s corporate email addresses unless they knew each other personally. Now, they are able to reach out to their colleagues across all departments via an internal directory on Gmail,” said Mr Han.

About Google Apps

Google Apps is a cloud-based productivity suite that helps you and your team connect and get work done from anywhere on any device. Google Apps includes Gmail, Google Calendar (shared calendaring), Google Drive (online content storage and sharing), and Google Docs, Sheets & Slides (document creation and collaboration). For more information, visit www.google.co.kr/a

Having in place an organised system to facilitate the reservation of operating rooms has drastically reduced the number of conflicts occurring between employees. With the help of Google Docs and Google Calendar, employees are able to have visibility over the surgical room bookings. Mr Han said, “Previously, there used to be minor conflicts between employees arising from the double booking of surgical rooms. Today, this is no longer an issue and we are extremely pleased that utilising Google Calendar has minimised scheduling conflicts and increased the professionalism and efficiency within the hospital.” Employees also use Google Docs to organise their tasks, creating to-do lists and implementing a priority system for tasks. Mr Han said, “Employees can now easily access the agendas of weekly meetings through Google Docs. They are also able to collaborate and plan their schedules better, saving time and reducing the need for mundane administrative tasks.” Even though it has been less than a year since the hospital started using Google Apps, it is already seeing positive spill over effects with internal communication among employees improving by 40% thanks to the use of Gmail, Calendar and Docs. Ewha Hospital is confident that with the help of Google Apps, they will be able to achieve the goal of becoming a top provider of healthcare facilities and service to better the lives of patients. “We are pleased by how Google Apps has truly helped us in facilitating clearer communications among our employees. We hope to further expand our use of Google Apps, such as conducting patient satisfaction surveys for patients using Google Forms. It is our aim to continually improve overall hospital management to better serve our patients and Google Apps is putting us on the map towards becoming a world-class medical institute. We are very excited to see what other benefits we will reap as we continue to use Google Apps,” Mr Han concluded.

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