Solution: CAS Severn builds a new, browser-based "Care Plan" software module as an extension to the client's existing electronic health record. Electronic signature pad support is included to allow patients to participate in the process by reviewing and co-signing the plan for their care.
Client Benefit: The "Care Plan" software module helps the healthcare provider to involve patients and their families in the design of their care.
Industry: Healthcare
Services performed/products provided: Application Development, Lotus Domino and Notes
Detailed Description:
CAS Severn is the primary software developer of an electronic health record (EHR) for a not-for-profit, behavioral healthcare provider that specializes in mental health, substance abuse and prevention services.

The organization wanted to empower their patients to take on a more active role in the development and implementation of their care. The concept of patient-centered care allows the patient and their families to become an integral part of the care team who collaborate with health care professionals in making clinical decisions. Patient-centered care also ensures that transitions between providers, departments, and health care settings are coordinated and efficient.

CAS Severn was charged with developing an application to meet the healthcare provider's needs. A primary tool used for delivering patient-centered care was the development of a new, browser-based "Care Plan" software module as an extension to the organization's existing electronic health record. Components of the new Care Plan include managing the patient's care team, capturing their life goal, identifying transition plans, documenting barriers to treatment, and developing short-term goals. Built-in review cycles and reminders ensure that the plan is consistently reevaluated so it remains relevant and effective.

CAS Severn leveraged a rapid web and mobile application development platform called XPages to develop this new software module. XPage software applications are hosted by an IBM Lotus Domino server and focus on the web development standards HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The programming model is based on standards and common web development skills like Ajax, the Dojo Toolkit, and server-side JavaScript.

CAS Severn also implemented electronic signature capture technology provided by Topaz Systems, Inc. Digital signatures are used so care providers and patients can electronically sign their Care Plan on-the-spot without the burden of having to print, sign, and scan a paper form.

In summary, the EHR Care Plan software developed by CAS Severn provides the healthcare provider with the tools to better engage patients and their families and improve care coordination.

Solution: CAS Severn worked with the client to fully ascertain both the short and long term requirements. After gathering requirements, the CAS Severn team proposed IBM Tivoli Identity Manager (ITIM) solution. Facing strong competition from Computer Associates (CA), CAS Severn was awarded the business by the client as ITIM was functionally robust and the CA offer was significantly higher in price. ITIM was both a Gartner Magic Quadrant solution and cost effective, making it a unique enterprise solution with a strong value.
Client Benefit: The client now has 1,400 employees using the ITIM solution nearly eliminating the endless stream of helpdesk calls for password resets. I/T management can audit and ensure compliance across all users, platforms and applications under the control of ITIM.
Industry: Insurance
Services performed/products provided: VMware, i5/OS, Linux, Windows, IBM, software, Tivoli
Detailed Description:
As a long time provider of consulting to the client, CAS Severn was asked to evaluate the mandate for end user password changes every 90 days. The longer a password went unmodified, the higher the likelihood of the password becoming compromised. With sensitive customer information at the fingertips of employees on a daily basis, this was a risk the executive management team would not take.

As part of the presales consultation, CAS Severn introduced the client to other insurance companies and enterprises also using ITIM successfully including large scale implementations that attest to the scalability of the solution.

The core platforms for which the ITIM solution was initially integrated included Active Directory, iSeries (AS/400), Lotus Domino/Notes (email) and Filenet (content management). As a robust identity management platform, ITIM comes with softare adapters that allows ITIM with out of the box functionality to manage user accounts and passwords for Active Director, iSeries, EMail and many other platforms. The ITIM implementation was deployed on Linux running in a VMWare virtual environment on blade servers.

Solution: CAS Severn delivered a senior development team resource with very high intellect to lead the project and provide technical recommendations to simplify and expedite development.
Client Benefit: Project development was significantly expedited, simplified and standardized. Furthermore, the CAS Severn technical lead also acquired the open project platform domain knowledge quickly to also add domain knowledge leadership to the project.
Market: Business
Industry: Information Technology
Services performed/products provided: Application Development
Detailed Description:
The open platform project and client specialize in natural language processing and text analysis. Over the past 10 years the client has developed a multi-patented text analysis platform that has been used in real-world commercial applications since 2003. The client has worked with over 900 brands over the past few years, with hundreds of customers and some of the largest ad and media agencies using the open platform technology every day.

The open platform project developed was launched in 2009 and has rapidly become regarded as the most sophisticated semantic platform in the market. Every day, the platform analyzes millions of web pages and social media comments for brand customers and Agency partners. The future of the web is about understanding meaning, which is the result of the platform.

Market research companies are getting hip to the opportunity of using semantic technology to deliver meaningful results to clients from the surveys they conduct for them. Global research agencies, whose clients include a large number of Fortune 500 brands to insurance, certainly get it. They use the semantic platform to help with analyzing and finding strategic value from survey participant's open-ended comments.

Today, the platform continues to work with some of the largest brands and agencies to better understand the meaning of content online, to segment audiences, improve targeting and to dynamically measure user engagement around brand campaigns.

Solution: An electronic system that keeps track of many factors that used to be done by hand
Client Benefit: A huge time savings and a far more organized system
Industry: Association
Services performed/products provided: Application Development, Java, DB2, WebSphere
Detailed Description:
When this specialized medical board first contracted with CAS Severn in 2006, they needed help with a paper nightmare. The client is a board that keeps track of doctors in a specialty medical field. Based in Texas, it is kept organized by a 10-person office.

The board is responsible for certifying doctors in the specialty area. This includes administering exams, tracking doctors as they progress and get re-certified and taking payments for these activities. Before contracting with CAS Severn, every process was done on paper. Doctors applied through paper applications, which were then processed; payments were made by sending checks through the mail. When someone needed to schedule an oral exam, great pains were taken to make sure the doctor would not know the person administering the exam. This required a labor-intensive process that took hours of time and was a huge burden on the small staff.

The CAS Severn team built a custom system for the client to keep track of all its processes. The system, powered by Java, allows staff to instantly see where each candidate is in the process of their certification, keeps track of test scores, payments and scheduling. The system can send out e-mails automatically to inform candidates when they are missing an element of their certification.

Another element CAS Severn tackled for the client's system was an exam-generation component. For certification exams, doctors help to write the questions. The board pairs up two doctors who work together, editing each other's questions and sending them in for approval. In the past, these doctors were mailing copies of their work back and forth and then mailing them in for approval. Now, the system pairs up the doctors electronically, moving possession of the question between the paired doctors and on for approval to the board.

Solution:A comprehensive consolidation and virtualization project
Client Benefit:The project brought the organization up-to-date with current technology, saved on energy, maintenance and administrative costs.
Industry:Non-Profit
Services performed/products provided: VMware, HP Lefthand, Virtualization, Consolidation
Detailed Description:
A large nonprofit organization in Baltimore called upon CAS Severn for a comprehensive consolidation and virtualization project. The team at CAS Severn was able to consolidate 54 servers down to four, replacing Dell systems with HP. The team also implemented the organization's first SAN, an iSCSI protocol, ProCurve switching and a virtual landscape. We also migrated Exchange and Great Plains onto the new servers, which have about 200 daily users and 2,000 exchange users.

The project brought the nonprofit up to date with current technology. It made the organization more efficient. Instead of replacing and repairing the older systems and storage solutions and replaced them with modern systems that use less energy, minimize administrative overhead costs and maintenance costs.

Solution: CAS Severn planned the move step-by-step and executed it in a single weekend.
Client Benefit: A consolidated data center in a new facility.
Industry: Federal
Services performed/products provided: IT strategic planning
Detailed Description:
An agency of the Department of Transportation tasked CAS Severn with physically relocating the agency’s entire IT infrastructure.

Our team had to first ensure that the IT infrastructure was fully functional and certified prior to the relocation. We did an inventory of all of the data center servers, network devices, scanners, and associated equipment and prepared them for relocation. Our project manager carefully planned the move, including the building of the new facilities across town, the power and cooling and all the cabling. Then during a single weekend, our team conducted the move: we decommissioned everything, boxed it up and moved it to the new facility.

Once all of the IT equipment was relocated to the new facility, our team did an inventory and installation all of the data center servers, the network infrastructure, the workstations and printers. We tested and certified the IT environment and provided support after the relocation as it was needed.

Solution: An imaged medical records system and a way to audit claims electronically.
Client Benefit: A decrease in the time in takes to respond to beneficiaries.
Industry: Federal
Services performed/products provided: ePCM
Detailed Description:
CAS Severn helped the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) enhance their system of managing patient information. Previously, CMS had been auditing medical claims by transferring medical records physically on CDs between geographically disperse locations. The medical files were being managed on a file system which was cumbersome to manage.

The CAS Severn team provided an imaged medical records system and provided a BPM functionality to audit the claims. The team also leveraged IBM’s content management applications to provide the central repository of imaged medical documents and provide the Business Process Management functions.

The system has significantly decreased response time to CMS beneficiaries.

Solution: A detailed analysis of 20 departments and 11 sub-departments
Client Benefit: A plan that outlined potential risks the government faced, and a plan to reduce those risks with consideration of the budgetary limitations.
Industry: State & Local Government
Services performed/products provided: Disaster Recovery, IT Strategic Planning
Detailed Description:
A county government retained CAS Severn in 2008 to construct an IT recovery plan that would allow the formation of a plan for storing, backing up and archiving applications, servers and data to limit its risk in case of a disaster. Using its proven methodology, the team at CAS Severn completed a business application review, reviewed the IT infrastructure the county government already had, performed a gap analysis and developed a high-level IT recovery strategy. Twenty departments and 11 sub-departments were included in the analysis. The team at CAS Severn provided the county with a budget planning guide for fiscal year 2009, an outline of potential risks for business units and possible mediation activities, a baseline cost model for the recovery center and a recovery build-out model to be used for future IT direction.

Solution: New BladeCenter hardware and software including the deployment of the IBM xSeries servers
Client Benefit: A more agile IT infrastructure that allowed the county to do more with less, without sacrificing availability and functionality
Industry: State & Local Government
Services performed/products provided: Server and Storage Consolidation
Detailed Description:
CAS Severn performed an assessment and then provided a solution to consolidate the servers and data at a county in Virginia. First the CAS Severn team assessed the situation to see how the county could save money and also simplify its existing IT infrastructure. They then installed BladeCenter hardware and software and installed xSeries servers, installed operating systems and made all necessary connections to get the systems up and running. The team also installed VMware ESX servers on several of the new xSeries servers. The result of this project was a more agile IT infrastructure that allowed the county to do more with less, without sacrificing availability and functionality.

Solution: FileNet software allowed the State to take paper applications and scan, index and file the documents, allowing for an electronic search and retrieval.
Client Benefit: The solution allowed the State to organize and manage their documents more efficiently with minimal investment in new staff.
Industry: State & Local Government
Services performed/products provided: ePCM, FileNet
Detailed Description:
A State Lottery was expanding to offer Video Terminal gambling at several locations throughout the State through third party vendors. Through this initiative the State envisioned a large increase in the amount of paper documents that they would need to handle and process. CAS Severn worked with the State to implement FileNet P8 v4.5 as the content repository and configured several business process flows to handle such things as employee background checks. FileNet software allowed the State to take paper applications and scan, index and file the documents, allowing for an electronic search and retrieval. CAS Severn also trained State employees. This project enabled the State to handle the large volume of new work with minimal investment in new staff.

Solution: Our team made recommendations as to the best course of action for servers, storage, network and recovery.
Client Benefit: A plan that included reduction of long-term costs, simplfied management of the technical environment and a creation of a flexible technical foundation to support the school system's business and educational needs.
Industry: K-12 Education
Services performed/products provided: IT Strategic Planning, Disaster Recovery
Detailed Description:
At a large city school system, CAS Severn did a total server consolidation analysis and design for all the city's schools and performed disaster recovery analysis. Our team made recommendations as to the best course of action for servers, storage, network and recovery.

The team at CAS Severn provided the following services:

• Reviewed IT structure already in place
• Helped determine objectives for the IT infrastructure
• Determined the impact to the school system operations in the event of a local or regional disaster
• Made IT recovery plan recommendations

The result was a plan that included reduction of long-term costs, simplified management of the technical environment and a creation of a flexible technical foundation to support the school system's business and educational needs.

Solution: CAS Severn consultants provided a blueprint outlining the steps the college could take to meet its IT goals and keep up with a growing demand.
Client Benefit: The college received the results of CAS Severn's analysis and a detailed report that analyzed everything from cloud computing to social network integration.
Industry: Higher Education
Services performed/products provided: IT Strategic Planning
Detailed Description:
A Maryland College approached CAS Severn for advice and recommendations on its IT strategy for the future. The school's goal, and overall mission, was to be the best of its kind. CAS Severn consultants, teamed with IBM, provided a path to complete 13 initiatives to improve its IT position for the future.

To develop the strategic report, CAS Severn consultants met with focus groups that included school officials, students, staff and administrative employees and employees who worked in technology services. As expected, each group had different priorities as far as their IT needs were concerned, and those were taken into account when our consultants devised the final strategic report.

The other side of the assessment phase included taking a quantitative look at the systems and infrastructure that was already in place at the school. Our consultants looked at what the infrastructure was currently supporting, and looked at the goals put in place by the school to see what they would need to do to meet the goals.

For each of the 13 initiatives, we provided a description of the initiative and why it might be good fit. Among the initiatives were cloud computing, IT governance and social network integration. The consultants provided a strategic alignment, to see if that solution would fit in with the overall organizational goals, looked at organizational implications of implementing the solution, the dependencies and risks, and developed an action plan.

The final report included a detailed roadmap for implementing each of the 13 initiatives the college set out, complete with duration and start and end dates. The report gave priorities, critical paths, success factors and budget implications for the recommended projects.

Solution: A combination of IBM AIX servers, Tivoli Storage Manager and other equipment helped the client reach its goals.
Client Benefit: The solutions provided by CAS Severn provided the capability to backup and restore data to both tape drives and the SAN, provided extensive support to applications and operating systems and allowed the college to consolidate many disparate systems.
Industry: Higher Education
Services performed/products provided: IT Strategic Planning, nSeries Storage, TSM, IBM Blade servers
Detailed Description:
A Maryland College approached CAS Severn when its data center had hit its capacity for power, cooling and space. The school needed to do something to accommodate its growing IT infrastructure needs. After CAS Severn experts performed an assessment and advised school officials of the best way to accomplish their goals, then helped them implement the plan.

We helped the college obtain and implement IBM system p servers, IBM nSeries storage systems, IBM's Diligent hardware and software for deduplication requirements, IBM TSM for backup and recovery and IBM Blade servers.

The Tivoli software provided the capability to backup and restore data to both tape drives and the SAN. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager also provided the most extensive support to various applications and operating systems over any other enterprise backup software on the market. AIX VIO allowed the College to consolidate many disparate systems.