Region’s New Technology Forum Focuses On Cost Saving Opportunities

January 14, 2009 :: Shirley Ross, Information Systems and Computing

The University City Technology Forum (UCTF) is a new forum comprised of members from Penn, University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Drexel, professional organizations (such as the Building Industry Consulting Service International), vendors (for example Siemon and Graybar), and IT professionals from companies including DuPont and Bala Consulting. Others are being asked to join the forum, including the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. The UCTF combines open discussions on technical problems that each institution faces and on potential cost saving opportunities, such as one that ISC, FRES, UPHS, and CHOP negotiated in the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine (at the old Civic Center site) to share costs in physical infrastructure to the new center. This initiative saved CHOP tens of thousands of dollars in construction costs. UCTF subgroup meetings will take place in early 2009 and the full group will meet in early spring to share infrastructure plans and seek out cost saving opportunities. For more information, please contact Mark Wehrle at wehrle@isc.upenn.edu or Thomas McCaffery at mccaffer@isc.upenn.edu or email IPP-Group@isc.upenn.edu.