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NHS Hampshire Case Study

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Novell NHS Appliance CASE STUDY

Novell Appliance provides a cure for NHS Hampshire

»The servers are remotely managed and have a small footprint that makes them ideal for GP practices where space is at a premium.«

Andy Eyles, head of ICT-Primary Care, NHS Hampshire

NHS Hampshire worked with Fujitsu partner Healthcare Computing Ltd to roll out the Novell Appliance on TX120 servers to 147 General Practices across more than 200 sites. Novell's ZENworks software allows Healthcare Computing Ltd to maintain a central asset database and deploy software and policies remotely, saving time and avoiding disruption for patients and staff.

The Challenge

NHS Hampshire is the largest Primary Care trust in the UK with 147 GP practices spread over more than 200 sites. It has worked with Fujitsu partner Healthcare Computing Ltd for over 10 years to implement and manage its GP IT estate, which includes over 3,600 desktops and more than 300 servers.

In early 2009 NHS Hampshire wanted to find a way to support their GP Practices more efficiently whilst reducing the cost to the local health community and impact on the GP practices.

The Solution

The Novell Appliance was developed by Novell to meet the needs of organisations with a high number of remote locations. It is combined with small form factor Fujitsu TX120 servers to provide an infrastructure that can be centrally managed, avoiding the need for disruptive and expensive site visits.

Healthcare Computing Ltd worked with NHS Hampshire to roll out the Novell Appliance to all of its sites. The whole network can be monitored, updated and remotely maintained from a Central Management Directory (CMD).

Solution components		Customer benefits
Primergy TX120 servers Novell NHS Appliance SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 Novell Open Enterprise Server Version 2 ZENworks Configuration Management		Remote software deployment Reduced time & costs of deploying / upgrading software Reduce NHS Carbon footprint - no visits required Minimised disruption / downtime to practices Remote software and hardware inventory management Lower cost of ICT management Remote management of upgrades Ability to restrict access to bandwidth hungry websites Ability to provide single sign-on Scheduled out of hours software distribution All software components covered under the NHS EWA

The project

A record of success

Andy Eyles, head of ICT Primary Care for NHS Hampshire, explains: "Every practice has its own clinical system and uses Microsoft Office and other clinical related applications. We wanted to implement the Novell Appliance as part of our strategy to reduce costs, improve service delivery and reduce our carbon footprint."
The system is directory-oriented and managed centrally. This means that all of the assets on the network can be monitored, upgraded and supported remotely and removes the need for engineers to visit GP practices. NHS Hampshire and Healthcare Computing Ltd can see exactly where each PC and server is and what they are running. "We can now deploy new versions of software or a new application very quickly, often overnight" says Andy Eyles. "In the past these processes would have been very intrusive - now they can be performed when the practice is closed. Not every practice has IT skills in-house but that is no longer a problem, as we now have a much more dynamic infrastructure in place and all systems can be managed remotely. It's much more convenient for practice staff and for our patients."
NHS Hampshire now has the ability to introduce new applications, such as website access blocking (to reduce bandwidth hungry data passing over the network), and single sign-on to the network. The small form Fujitsu servers used in the practices are also unobtrusive, adding to the convenience of the system.

The solution has had an enthusiastic welcome from GPs and practice managers across Hampshire. Mick Smith is IT manager at Fordingbridge Surgery, which was one of six practices involved in a pilot study for the new system. He says: "Most surgeries don't have a data centre but the small form factor of the Fujitsu TX120 means it can fit in anywhere. More and more IT systems are web-based so it makes a lot of sense to have a system that can be used to manage and upgrade applications remotely, and this solution means we have no disruption to day-to-day work in the surgery."
Andy Eyles concludes: "Fujitsu and Novell have dedicated teams of people who look after the NHS. Fujitsu were very keen to ensure that its hardware was tailored to our exact requirements and fully compatible with the Novell software. This, together with the low energy requirements of Fujitsu's hardware, has helped to make the project a success. We are now poised to build on the solid and dependable platform that the Fujitsu and Novell solution provides for all our GP Practices."

Contact

Healthcare Computing Ltd
Mon. - Fri.:9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Email: ssa@healthcarecomputing.co.uk
Phone:+44 (0) 1425 200642

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