WESTERN HEALTH IMPROVES END-USER EXPERIENCE, EXTENDS ENDPOINT DEVICE LIFESPAN, STREAMLINES MANAGEMENT AND SECURES END USERS WITH IGEL

Snapshot

Client – Western Health
Industry – Hospitals & Physicians Clinics
Product – IGEL
Partner – Insight

IGEL becomes the solution of choice for the healthcare provider because it integrates with Imprivata and makes it easy for the organisation to connect to multiple hosted services using the latest software agents for extending the life of legacy endpoint devices.

SUMMARY

Western Health required an endpoint management solution to prolong the lifespan of ageing devices, thereby enhancing their sustainability and streamlining management processes
Key requirements included a “Break Glass” feature, integration with Imprivata and unified communications systems and minimising user impact during the transition
IGEL was chosen due to its excellent functionality, ease of integration with Imprivata, and cost savings achieved by not replacing 1,000 thin clients
The solution offers role-based access control, zero-touch deployment, and integration with current management services, as well as reporting and alerting on device usage, support for change management and end-user communication
Western Health devices are now able to be maintained with the latest security updates with very little downtime for staff during these updates

THE CUSTOMER

With over 12,000 employees, Western Health is committed to collaborating with the community to provide exceptional patient care through its six hospitals, Community Health Centres, and Aged Care facilities, serving over 700,000 patients annually, offering various clinical services, including mental health and wellness, emergency medicine, intensive care, surgical services, subacute care, and virtual ambulatory clinics. Western Health also provides specialised care for oncology, renal, women’s health, chronic diseases, geriatrics and cardiology.

We chose IGEL because of its impressive functionality. Additionally, it enabled us to utilise our thin clients more sustainably by facilitating a transition of support from the device manufacturer to IGEL, thereby extending the useful life of our assets.

Cameron McBride, Director,
Digital Technology Services, Western Health

THE CHALLENGE

Western Health identified multiple challenges as the organisation attempted to modernise its endpoint infrastructure to align with the investment made in updating its virtual desktop solutions. The business had set key criteria for the modernisation project in the areas of:

Cybersecurity
High Availability
Interoperability with key internal services
Serviceability by IT and users
Hardware integration

Among the most pressing issues was the need to deliver an improved user experience while sustainably extending the lifespan of Dell, HP, all-in-one thin clients, and endpoint devices, together with integrating into the Imprivata tap on tap off service. Additionally, the solution being implemented needed to simplify device management into a single pane of glass to manage different Dell and HP thin clients, laptops, and workstations to improve hardening and security footprint by eliminating devices using legacy operating systems without having to physically replace them and using highly secured endpoints across their locations.

Western Health leveraged the IGEL solution to implement a disaster recovery “Break Glass” procedure to bypass routine access control procedures during critical emergencies. In the case of a significant event at the primary datacentre(s), Western Health can now rapidly redirect critical care workers from the core Citrix platform to a segregated Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) environment providing direct access to health service-hosted SaaS apps.

Brian Riegels-Morgan, a Senior Consultant at Insentra, provided guidance to Western Health in its endeavor to modernise its endpoint infrastructure. He emphasised, “Western Health sought the capability to seamlessly connect through Imprivata to their new Citrix service using the latest Citrix Workspace App client.”

Critical success factors for Western Health included an improved user experience accessing centralised services; the ability to optimise Unified Communications for Microsoft Teams and Zoom; the flexibility to swiftly adjust the configurations of their end-user devices to accommodate various Citrix farms, external services, applications, or the Disaster Recovery Microsoft AVD solution, even in simulated scenarios where it’s Citrix farm might be unavailable; the ability to manage multiple physical endpoint workstation types from a single management console; and, providing hostname passthrough for printing within its Citrix environment.

“Ensuring minimal impact to our users while transitioning to the new services and configuring role-based access control for support teams was critical for Western Health,” added Tuzun, “Our IT team wanted to to have a uniform and streamlined management solution, update images and firmware on many endpoints across diverse locations and integrate with current management services for CMDB and image delivery. Finally, we required reporting and alerting on device usage and advice and input for change management, user acceptance testing, and end-user communication.”

We wanted to integrate IGEL target devices with Imprivata and provide optimised functionality for use with unified communications, including
Telehealth, Zoom and Teams for supported device types such as headsets, webcam and speakers, explained

Oz Tuzun, Technology Specialist,
Digital Technology Services, Western Health

THE IGEL SOLUTION

In selecting IGEL, Western Health conducted a Proof of Value (PoV) exercise and found the IGEL solution met all the required criteria established by the organisation. “We chose IGEL due to its functionality and support of multiple usage scenarios and environments Western Health use, which allowed us to extend our current hardware investment,” said McBride.

“It integrates well with Imprivata and makes connecting to multiple hosted services using the latest clients easy. It also saved Western Health money as we could continue to use 1,000 thin clients sustainably, which would not have hardware vendor support when directed to the new Disaster Recovery AVD solution being implemented. Changing to the IGEL OS on the devices provided an improved and supported solution.”

OUTCOME

Western Health, along with its technology consulting partners, Insentra and Insight, have expressed their overwhelmingly positive experience with IGEL. Riegels-Morgan stated, “IGEL’s pre-sales and support teams played pivotal roles in the successful Proof of Value (PoV), deployment and overall customer acceptance of our services. While the project encountered a few challenges, such as a Wi-Fi NIC driver issue and SCEP Wi-Fi network connectivity involving AD certificates, the IGEL support team provided detailed and effective resolutions.

Riegels-Morgan went on to highlight Western Health’s comprehensive utilisation of IGEL in conjunction with Citrix, Imprivata, AVD, and in the creation of public use kiosks. These kiosks grant users access to various applications, including Zoom, LibreOffice, web browsers and other applications, delivering a more streamlined and efficient experience for patients and visitors, while ensuring the security of sensitive information.

The deployment of IGEL OS on Western Health’s devices has notably enhanced user performance. McBride remarked, “These improvements were evident during the pilot phase initially intended for 50 devices. The overwhelmingly positive feedback prompted the rapid expansion of the pilot to encompass over 200 devices as business users recognised the enhanced functionality provided by IGEL OS.”

Western Health has already procured additional licenses to support the transition of a new hospital they are onboarding. McBride summed up their experience with IGEL by saying “Overall, our experience with IGEL and their local partner Insentra has been exceptional. From a professional services perspective, the customisation, security and modular service approach are fantastic. The ease of fine-tuning configurations to meet our specific requirements while drawing from a set of established standard profiles adds substantial value to our implementation and our organisation.”

ABOUT IGEL

Today, the world of work is hybrid. Multiple clouds can deliver applications sourced from anywhere to a widely distributed workforce using all types of devices. Right at the moment when the world of work needs it most, IGEL has the solution for fully managed, secure endpoint access to any digital workspace that gives IT teams strong control and end-users the freedom to work as they wish in a hybrid world. Enabling choice of any cloud, from any device, anywhere, IGEL unlocks a collaborative and productive end user computing experience while solving the common security and management challenges required to compete and win in today’s world of hybrid work. With a growing ecosystem of more than 100 IGEL Ready technology partners, IGEL has offices in Europe and the United States and is represented by partners in over 50 countries. For more information on IGEL, visit www.igel.com.

ABOUT INSIGHT

Insight Enterprises, Inc. is a global Fortune 500 Solutions Integrator helping accelerate transformation by unlocking the power of people and technology. We architect, build and manage solutions for complex IT environments. Our digital transformation services include deep expertise in cloud, data, AI, cybersecurity and intelligent edge, augmented by longstanding relationships with 6,000+ technology partners. By quickly and effectively delivering best-fit solutions, we help our clients simplify modern business processes to improve customer and work experiences, business intelligence, efficiency and growth. We’re rated as a Great Place to Work, a Forbes Best Employer for Diversity and a Forbes World’s Top Female-Friendly Company. Discover more at au.insight.com.

ABOUT INSENTRA

Insentra is a truly collaborative IT Services Partner delivering a range of specialised Advisory, Professional and Managed Services, transacting exclusively through the IT channel. Our partner-centric business model provides our Partners and their clients with access to technologies, industry expertise and accountable outcomes.

Our service offerings cover technologies by Microsoft, Citrix, Red Hat, AvePoint, IGEL, Rimo3, Nulia and many more across modern workplace, cloud, collaboration, security, support, migrations and more. We love what we do and are driven by a relentless determination to deliver exceptional service excellence. The combined individual skills, experiences and perspectives of our crew enable us to achieve powerful results for our Partners and their clients. For more information, visit www.insentragroup.com.

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