Healthcare Technology Consulting
Independent leadership
for technology, deployment,
and recovered spend.
Kris Ervin & Associates helps hospitals and health systems run technology programs on time, deploy infrastructure cleanly, and stop paying for what they don’t use.
Independent of software vendors. Named principal. Measured in dollars and operating KPIs.
Principal
Kris Ervin
Kris Ervin is an independent healthcare technology consultant who helps hospitals and health systems run technology programs on time, deploy infrastructure cleanly, and stop paying for what they don’t use. He has spent 25 years on the operator’s side of healthcare IT — managing telecommunications, networks, and technology budgets inside the organizations he now advises.
Kris led telecommunications at Ascension Health, one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the U.S., for 20 anchor hospitals located from Mobile, AL to Bridgeport, CT. With Computer Sciences Corporation he managed St. Vincent’s Medical Centers and served as Regional Manager for technology services. He has also worked with Baptist Health and in technology expense management with Quality First Solutions. That career gives him an unusual combination: he has run the projects, owned the vendor relationships, and read the invoices.
In addition, he provided project management for Pitney Bowes, migrating legacy telecom to RingCentral within the US, Europe, and Australia. For Highwire Networks he managed over 75 major deployments of various technologies including VoIP, networks, and wireless.
Today Kris works as a named principal. Clients get his judgment directly, not a rotating bench of analysts. He does not resell software or accept vendor placement fees, so every recommendation is made on the client’s side of the table. Kris is based in the Jacksonville, Florida area and works with organizations across the Southeast and nationally.
Project Management
Programs that land on the date you published.
Healthcare technology projects rarely fail on technology. They fail on scope drift, unclear ownership, and vendors who report their own progress. Kris Ervin & Associates, LLC runs projects from the hospital’s side — one plan, one owner, one honest status.
Typical projects: Network and telecom upgrades, data center and cloud moves, new facility and clinic openings, mergers and system consolidations.
How success is measured: On-time milestones, variance to budget, and change orders avoided — reported against the baseline set at kickoff.
What’s included
- Project charter, scope, and success criteria approved by the executive sponsor
- Integrated schedule across IT, clinical, facilities, and vendor teams
- Budget tracking against approved capital and operating dollars
- Risk, issue, and change-control logs with named owners and dates
- Weekly working sessions and a one-page executive status report
- Vendor milestone accountability: payment tied to delivered work
- Recovery of stalled or over-budget programs
Have a program slipping? Request a 30-minute conversation.
Request a ConversationTechnology Deployment
From signed contract to stable go-live, without surprises at cutover.
A deployment is where every earlier decision gets tested — the design, the contract, the training plan, and the vendor’s promises. Kris Ervin & Associates, LLC plans and controls deployments so clinical operations keep running while the technology underneath them changes.
Where this applies: Clinical systems, voice and unified communications, nurse call and paging, wired and wireless networks, cloud and hosting migrations, and multi-site rollouts.
How success is measured: Go-live on the committed date, open tickets after go-live, downtime minutes, and user adoption at 30 and 90 days.
What’s included
- Deployment strategy: phased, big-bang, or pilot-first, chosen for clinical risk
- Site surveys and readiness assessments for network, telecom, and infrastructure
- Interface, integration, and data-migration coordination
- Testing plans: unit, integrated, and end-user acceptance
- Cutover runbooks, go/no-go criteria, and rollback plans
- Go-live command center and hypercare support
- Post-live stabilization and handoff to operations
Planning a go-live in the next 12 months? Start with a readiness review.
Request a ConversationSpend Reduction
Find the money already leaving the building — and prove it came back.
Most hospitals are paying for circuits that were never disconnected, licenses nobody logs into, and contract rates that expired years ago. Kris Ervin & Associates, LLC audits technology and purchased-services spend line by line, then recovers it. Savings are reported only when a credit, amendment, or lower run-rate is on paper.
How success is measured: Annual run-rate reduction, one-time credits recovered, and dollars evidenced by credit memo or executed amendment.
Commercial model: Retainer, fixed fee, or contingency on evidenced savings — so the engagement can pay for itself.
What’s included
- Telecom and technology expense audit: voice, data circuits, wireless, cloud, and software
- Inventory reconciliation: what you pay for vs. what is installed and in use
- Billing-error and overcharge recovery with carrier and vendor credits
- Right-sizing of licenses, lines, bandwidth, and maintenance agreements
- Accounts payable recovery and duplicate-payment review
- Purchased-services benchmarking against market rates
- A savings ledger separating identified potential from realized recovery
Send a sample of three months of invoices for a no-cost first look (after terms are in place).
Request a ConversationVendor & Contract Management
A vendor book someone actually owns.
Even a mid-sized hospital can carry dozens of technology vendors, auto-renewing contracts, and service levels no one checks. Kris Ervin & Associates, LLC brings them under one discipline: know what you signed, hold vendors to it, and renegotiate before the renewal date — not after.
Independence: Kris Ervin does not resell software and does not accept vendor placement fees. Every negotiation is on the client’s behalf only.
How success is measured: Contracts renegotiated before renewal, price increases avoided, SLA credits collected, and vendor count reduced.
What’s included
- Vendor and contract inventory with renewal dates, terms, and owners
- Renewal calendar with 90-, 120-, and 180-day negotiation triggers
- RFP design, scoring, and vendor selection on the hospital’s side of the table
- Contract negotiation: pricing, SLAs, termination rights, and price-escalation caps
- Service-level monitoring and credit enforcement
- Vendor rationalization: consolidate overlapping tools and suppliers
- Quarterly vendor performance reviews and executive scorecards
Not sure what renews next quarter? Start with a contract inventory.
Request a ConversationBegin
Request a conversation.
Thirty minutes. No deck theater. Bring the problem as it actually sits — a technology decision, a vendor book, or the absence of technology leadership.
Do not upload patient names, MRNs, or claim files on this page. Confidential files move only after engagement terms and, where required, a BAA.