Mediclinic and TCM: A 25-years ICT Partnership
July 11,
2012 
For the second year in a row, Mediclinic Southern Africa awarded its Supplier of the Year accolade for information and communication technology (ICT) to TCM
“We rely on TCM to deliver ICT services to our 52 hospitals across South Africa and Namibia,” says Deon Myburgh, ICT Operations Manager for Mediclinic Southern Africa.
TCM has been doing business with Mediclinic Southern Africa for the past 25 years and has literally become an extension of the hospital group's ICT department.
“One of the huge advantages of TCM is its footprint,” says Myburgh. “Being a large organisation, it can provide a comprehensive break/fix service to all our many sites.”
The relationship goes far beyond this, however, as Mediclinic’s infrastructure partner, TCM is for instance also responsible for configuring and installing new equipment.
TCM has a reputation for its IBM skills, and a large part of its value-add is the management of Mediclinic's IBMi Power 7 (AS/400) equipment. Recently, Mediclinic made a decision to consolidate 16 core hospital applications onto a single virtualised IBMi environment which was successfully commissioned by TCM.
“Under HP’s Value Systems Integrator model, all HP equipment purchased by Mediclinic is supplied by TCM who carry stock, load software and deliver to one of the multiple locations across Southern Africa,” Myburgh notes.
Another area in which TCM acts as an extension of the Mediclinic ICT department is the outsourced IT service desk - and it provides contract staff for the group's Wintel and network environments. Mediclinic recently switched disaster recovery providers, moving to TCM. Says Myburgh, “TCM built its new Cape Town facility around our requirements and Mediclinic Southern Africa is its anchor tenant, so to speak.”
A relatively new development in this long-standing relationship is MCSA's Picture, Archiving and Communications network. It’s an innovative separate network to support doctors with access to digital radiography and pathology information at 20 Mediclinic hospitals. A dedicated TCM team supports this network.
“The key to the success of this relationship is our unique co-sourcing model,” Myburgh observes. “We retain full strategic direction of our ICT infrastructure—and we work closely with TCM as one team. TCM will deliver what we need whatever it takes. And, after 25 years, they have an intimate understanding of our business!”