Curaçao has one large hospital. That’s the CMC. When it opened its doors in Willemstad in November 2019, it replaced the Sint Elisabeth Hospital, a building dating back to 1855 that had long since stopped meeting the demands of modern care.

The new CMC was set up as fully digital from the very start, and stands as a reference point for innovative care in the Caribbean region. It has an internal IT team of 26 people that keeps day-to-day operations running. But the depth and availability a fully digitized hospital demands reach further than an internal team can deliver on its own. Especially when you’re building everything from the ground up.

A new hospital, an entirely new infrastructure

The opening of the CMC wasn’t a migration. It was new construction. No existing infrastructure to build on, no legacy to replace gradually. Everything had to be created: data center, server park, EHR integration, workstations, security, backup, and disaster recovery.

On top of that comes the geographic reality of Curaçao. Local IT specialists with the required depth aren’t available in sufficient numbers. Second-line and third-line support has to come from far away, and in practice that distance can never be felt.

For a hospital that runs 24 hours a day, and where systems are directly tied to patient safety, that’s no small task.

Trust, built through other hospitals

The CMC wasn’t looking for a party that could answer an RFP. They were looking for someone who already understood what hospitals need. At that point, we had already built and managed IT platforms for several Dutch care organizations, including Erasmus MC. That track record made the difference.

In the words of Elmer Kwidama, Manager of ICT & Information Management at the CMC: “we don’t just literally speak the same language, we’re also on the same wavelength. That’s exactly what a long-term partnership runs on.”

What we built for the CMC

We began our partnership with a thorough inventory: which systems need to be created, what the dependencies are, what the organization looks like, and what the internal IT team already has in-house. On that basis came a design that was secure by design, heavily standardized, and built on Infrastructure as Code.

The infrastructure we put in place:

• Design and build of the entire digital infrastructure that the EHR (ChipSoft HiX, including DWH and the TAB and DBA portals) and office IT run on.
• A dual data center setup: the external data center as the primary production environment, and the OTA and failover environment within the hospital itself. If the connection drops, the CMC stays operational.
• A fixed-price agreement, delivered through a warm handover to the CMC management team. No loose ends, no surprises after the fact.

“From the very first moment, the team has offered us professional, tailored support. Over the years, that partnership has driven real growth in knowledge and skill. It has made the CMC IT department a more stable factor across the whole organization.”

Elmer Kwidema

Manager ICT & Information management

How we continue to support the CMC

Building was the beginning. Managing is the partnership. Since delivery in October 2019, co-one has provided a 24/7 managed service from the Netherlands, as fixed second- and third-line support for Elmer Kwidama’s IT team.

What that involves in practice:

• 24/7 availability: day-to-day management of the backend environment, with short lines of communication and fast response. If the CMC reports a problem at the end of the working day, it’s solved the next morning.
• A fully managed ChipSoft HiX environment: including the data warehouse and the TAB and DBA portals. Everything care professionals need to do their work stays available.
• Disaster recovery across 8,000 km: the same service as for Dutch care organizations, only with the Atlantic Ocean in between. The time difference works in our favor here: updates and maintenance happen while the island sleeps.
• Knowledge transfer as a fixed part of the deal: the CMC’s internal IT team has grown in knowledge and skill over the years. That wasn’t a byproduct of the partnership. That was the point.
• Continuous improvement as the common thread: not a contract full of fine print, but a partnership that keeps moving with the CMC’s growth.