Belfast Health and Social Care Trust

Health and Social Services Organization Aims to Lower Costs with New Software

Northern Ireland’s Belfast Health and Social Care Trust experienced rising costs due to the complexity of managing computers across many different locations. Time-intensive administration also limited the IT department’s ability to deliver key services to employees. The Trust decided to upgrade to the Windows Vista® operating system and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system to simplify desktop management, enhance security, and boost employee efficiency.

 

Business Needs

In April 2007, Northern Ireland’s government formed the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, combining the services of six existing healthcare trusts in Belfast into one larger entity. With 22,000 employees, the Trust provides comprehensive health and social care to 340,000 people in Northern Ireland.

When the Trust was formed, it faced the challenge of managing seven different Active Directory® service environments totaling 22,000 computer users and 9,000 computers. These domains included employees in six organizations: the Trust headquarters, Belfast City Hospital, The Royal Hospitals, Mater Hospital, Forster Green Hospital, and Musgrave Hospital, across more than 100 physical locations. Without the ability to centrally administer software and security updates or to ensure standard configuration settings for computers across these locations, IT staff found management of the Trust’s desktop infrastructure to be complex and highly manual. The IT department spent hours fielding support calls and manually configuring computers, which hindered its ability to deliver services to employees that would best enable them to provide safe and modernized health and social care to the public. The high costs of IT were also a barrier to the Trust’s ability to accomplish a key objective: to balance the books.

Additionally, the pool of computers managed by the IT department includes a high percentage of portable computers. To comply with data-privacy requirements, the Trust wanted to have better control over the information on these portable devices.

Solution

To improve its IT operations, the Trust decided to merge its seven Active Directory user domains into one domain. To accelerate this consolidation, it is standardizing its desktop environment on the Windows Vista® operating system and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. Paul Duffy, the Trust’s IT Co-Director, says, “The new organization presented many infrastructure challenges. Windows Vista on the desktop will give us more flexibility, security, and control so that we can simplify and standardize the overall environment.”  

Our new Windows Vista–based environment will result in a higher level of efficiency for the whole organization. Paul Duffy IT Co-Director, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust

To quickly and smoothly deploy the new software and minimize disruption to employees, the IT department is conducting a Zero-Touch Installation across the network, using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. The Trust will also use System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to track and report on its software and hardware assets across the organization. The new solution based on Windows Vista also enables IT to provision new applications to end users dynamically, using Microsoft Softgrid® Application Virtualization, a virtualization solution that delivers applications on-demand. Because each type of department within the Trust—such as Finance, Pharmaceutical, or Clinical—relies on applications that are very specific to the services it provides, virtualized application delivery will streamline users’ access to the applications they need, while reducing IT effort dramatically.

With the help of Microsoft Services and Microsoft Gold Certified partner Novosco, a leading provider of virtual infrastructure technology and services, the Trust has now deployed Windows Vista to 5,000 computers in departments including Human Resources, Finance, Medicine and Surgery, and others. In-house IT staff are continuing the deployment to the remaining 3,500 Windows Vista–compatible computers by March 2009.

Benefits

With its new desktop infrastructure, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust has simplified its IT environment, increased the agility of its IT department, and enhanced security for confidential information. It has also improved employees’ day-to-day experience finding and working with information.

Centralized management, significantly lower costs. Duffy says, “There is increasing pressure on IT to lower our costs and increase our agility. By standardizing on Windows Vista, centralizing management, and using a Zero-Touch Installation, we can significantly reduce the high costs associated with deploying and managing a large number of computers across many domains and locations.” In addition, with its new software, the Trust’s IT department gains the ability to use enhanced Group Policy features within Windows Vista to centrally manage and standardize many more features and settings, such as USB device and power management, for greater control over its user base. This added control lowers the total cost of ownership for the Trust’s desktop infrastructure.

Enhanced security. The Trust is responsible for hundreds of thousands of patient and client records and other confidential information. With many employees using portable computers, securing confidential data while computers are off premises is a primary concern. Using the Windows® BitLocker™ Drive Encryption feature of Windows Vista, the Trust can encrypt all data on the hard disk drive of a portable computer automatically. “The increased focus on compliance has heightened our need for data encryption. Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption is a tremendous safeguard against private information becoming compromised,” says Duffy.

The IT department is now planning on enabling other Windows Vista features, such as Network Access Protection, to define levels of access based on a user’s identity, and Windows Defender, to provide protection against spyware, which helps the Trust to further secure its environment.

Easier access, anytime access. Users at the Trust are finding that Windows Vista is designed to help them find information quickly. For example, they can use Instant Search to locate files and e-mail messages just by providing a single detail about the file, such as when it was created or what it contains. In addition, with SoftGrid Application Virtualization, users can access the applications they need without being tied to a specific computer. This is not only more convenient for users; it is also an advantage to the Trust’s IT department. Applications delivered through SoftGrid Application Virtualization are never locally installed, so there are fewer compatibility issues, which helps the department to be more responsive to the needs of the Trust. “Our new Windows Vista–based environment will result in a higher level of efficiency for the whole organization,” concludes Duffy.