Fusion Productions - Integrating Meetings, Learning & Technology

Organization

The American College of Emergency Physicians represents more than 22,000 members and is the emergency medicine specialty society recognized by organized medicine. ACEP has 53 chapters at the local level and 25 sections representing special interests areas.

Challenge

As ACEP continued its journey in delivering value to its members and key constituencies in the digital world, the 2002/2003 priorities looked at its core foundation technology and business process strategies. The challenge was providing more personalized and customized services and support to ACEP members and position the College as the source of information for emergency medicine.

Specifically, this assessment focused on the following key questions and issues.

• Examine the current Association Management Systems (AMS); web publishing capabilities and other web-based services to determine the next steps required to support ACEP’s identified priorities.
• Given the vision of delivering personalization, supporting e-services and positioning ACEP as the source of information for emergency medicine, what will the AMS, web publishing system, database, systems architecture, and other core application and systems requirements need to consider?
• Additionally examine what other foundation elements may be required to support ACEP’s technology direction in taxonomy, integration platform, and application areas such as meeting planning, etc.

Solution

Fusion provided in-depth assessment of requirements, business processes, human resource skills, and technical capacities. In addition, Fusion researched technical considerations on key issues such as middleware, Content Management Systems (CMS), AMS, accounting systems, and programming languages. A technology audit was completed based on an in-depth assessment of integration of the AMS with web and associated applications such as general ledger, advocacy, contact management, knowledge assets, and capacities to deliver customization and personalization value propositions to ACEP’s members.

Fusion also:

• Developed a technology strategic plan for ACEP, including business processes, business requirements, and corresponding technology implications/requirements including AMS, taxonomy, integration, CMS, and over architecture and data models.
• Developed a tactical implementation plans for ACEP supporting the strategic technology plan for the last 3 years.
• Served as Technology Advisor for ACEP for ongoing tactical implementation.

Results

During their analysis of the technological infrastructure of ACEP, Fusion determined the current iteration of ACEP’s Association Management System (AAMS) was a solid foundation from which to grow. It was developed using MS SQL server — a robust database engine — with the flexibility to adapt to the needs of ACEP. 

Fusion's understanding was that the next generation of the AAMS would be re-architected using an N-tier architecture. ACEP was moving the business logic away from the presentation layer into a new middle tier. This would provide ACEP with a single point of entry for future application integration. Web services could then be used as a transportation mechanism to integrate other applications data between the middle business layer and the presentation layer. ACEP’s plan to develop web services between the AAMS and its applications was considered a sound decision and follows trends seen in commercially available AMSs.