Idea to Product in Four Months:
InterSystems CACHÉ Works for CTQ Solutions

Key Benefits

  • Performance
  • Reliability
  • Rapid Application Development

In the world of Web software development, fast time-to-market is more than a goal…it’s a critical requirement for competitive success. It was also a key driver behind the decision by CTQ Solutions to build its EdgeSurvey software on the CACHÉ database and rapid application development platform…a decision that paid off when the company brought EdgeSurvey to market just four months after the product was first conceptualized.

Based in Branford, CT, CTQ Solutions was founded to provide quality technology products and services for the ambulatory surgery industry. Its flagship product is EdgeSurvey, a solution for creating, distributing, managing and analyzing Web surveys. “Web surveys offer multiple significant advantages over paper surveys,” says CTQ President and CEO Scott Palmer. “For example, research has shown increased response rates to targeted email surveys and survey results are immediately recorded in our database, eliminating time-consuming and error-prone result compilation.

“We knew that the ambulatory surgery market was ready for a product like EdgeSurvey ,” Palmer continues, explaining that CTQ targets surgery centers nationwide that handle anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 cases annually. “We also knew that we had to deliver the web survey product quickly.” CACHÉ provides the combination of platform flexibility and RAD functionality that proved optimal for CTQ. “We wound up developing on Windows and deploying on Linux and went from concept to market in just four months,” Palmer says.

In addition to its top-tier RAD functionality and flexibility, CACHÉ delivers the fastperformance CTQ wants to offer to its customer base. “With the CACHÉ post-relational database, we can provide good performance, even on dial-up lines, “ Palmer notes. “We’ve also had 100 percent uptime ever since our service went live. CACHÉ delivers the level of reliability that our customers demand, along with the performance and scalability we need to keep growing.

RAD, High Performance Underlie Customer Success

The combination of high performance and the RAD capabilities of CACHÉ are as key to CTQ Solutions’ customers as to this InterSystems application partner. “When we identified needs specific to our environment, the RAD facilities available in CACHÉ made it easy for CTQ to respond rapidly,” says Marilyn Christian, vice president of risk management and corporate compliance at Foundation Surgery Affiliates (FSA). “And, the system is very fast, so the productivity impact has been entirely positive. We really appreciate getting our results so quickly,” Christian continues.

A leading healthcare management group, FSA specializes in the development and management of ambulatory surgery centers, diagnostic imaging centers, surgical hospitals and healthplexes in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma and New Jersey. “We were intrigued with the possibility of using Web-based technology to improve on the traditional paper-based survey process, which typically results in poor patient response rates and a lack of consistent benchmarking,” Christian says.

“With CACHÉ-based EdgeSurvey, we felt there was a good opportunity to get more and better patient feedback very rapidly. That’s why we agreed to pilot the service.” The FSA pilot project began with four facilities going live with EdgeSurvey in 4Q03 and met with immediate success, according to Christian.

“Our overall response rate with the Web surveys quickly doubled from 25 percent to 50 percent.,” Christian says. “It’s the feedback that comes from these surveys that identifies those areas where we can improve our patient care delivery. Concrete results from surveys, such as a decrease in wait time for the patient, or the addition of curbing and lighting on exterior walkways have a very positive impact on overall customer satisfaction,” she comments.

“CTQ’s focus is simple—to provide cost-effective and quality products that help facilities improve care, Improve service to physicians and patients, increase efficiency, and obtain better information for decision-making,” Palmer says. “InterSystems provides the database technology foundation and the world-class support needed to maintain that focus. It’s a win-win business partnership,” he concludes.