Solidarity during times of crisis—neighbors assisting neighbors simply for the sake of being helpful—is how communities pull through. The same is true of businesses that lend a hand to one another during difficult periods.
While the United States struggles as a nation to respond to the dangerously contagious novel coronavirus known as COVID-19, businesses are shutting down and people are confining themselves to their homes in an attempt to “flatten the curve,” or reduce the infection rate, as much as possible and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The healthcare industry has been on the front lines of this public health crisis. One healthcare organization in particular was recently facing a significant challenge it couldn’t easily address on its own. That’s where solidarity came in.
Indiana University Health, a nonprofit healthcare system that operates 17 hospitals throughout Indiana and employs nearly 30,000 people, is recognized as the largest and most comprehensive healthcare system in the state. When the COVID-19 pandemic began reaching local communities served by IU Health, it was clear that immediate action was needed. The hospital system sought ways to serve populations at risk of infection without putting other patients in unnecessary danger of exposure or infection.
The decision was made to establish a series of remote testing centers dedicated to providing treatment outside of primary IU Health facilities. These “pop-up” clinics would serve as additional resources for potential and confirmed COVID-19 cases while reducing the logistical burden on traditional, physical hospitals.
However, these clinics would need the same level of data center access, information security, and connection reliability that the main hospitals had. The medical professionals staffing these clinics would also expect high quality of service, predictable performance, and consistent bandwidth from the network, as well as the ability to securely use the devices and applications they’re accustomed to using in their day-to-day hospital environments.
Additionally, IU Health’s medical professionals and IT specialists alike needed the network to not only handle communications and computer activity, but to also monitor patients connected to other networked medical equipment.
The operative issue was to adapt IU Health’s existing IT infrastructure to this new functionality and get the new pop-up sites networked and operational on a strict timeline.
Fortunately for IU Health and the communities it serves, a strong and productive partnership already existed between the hospital network and CBTS. With their wealth of knowledge about IU Health’s day-to-day networking technology needs, CBTS was in a position to offer immediate and effective assistance. Despite global inventory shortages and shipping delays, IU Health’s networking technology partners were able to develop and deploy a VMware SD-WAN solution powered by VeloCloud on short notice, with patient service and wellness being the top priorities.
Through a combination of close cooperation, forethought, and nimble problem-solving, IU Health and CBTS were able to design and deploy a scalable, agile, and highly mobile cloud computing network that grants reliable data center access to all of IU Health’s newly established remote contact centers—all within 24 hours. This network allows these pop-up clinics, often located in parking lots and other disparate areas, to operate with the same effectiveness as fully network hospitals while enjoying reliable connections to existing data centers, despite the distances involved.
Additionally, this VMware SD-WAN solution by VeloCloud includes proprietary collaboration tools and cloud applications, as well as the capability to prioritize mission-critical traffic over any transport conditions. As a managed solution, the network can also be monitored, maintained, and updated as needed from a single point of contact.
Like two neighbors coming together to address a serious issue, this partnership between a client and a provider led to a synergistic and effective solution. By working closely, the two entities accomplished a significant feat in rapidly deploying multiple pop-up clinics in one day, taking the fight against COVID-19 to the front lines, and providing testing and treatment to tens of thousands of patients in non-traditional locations.
To find out more about what partnership with CBTS and VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud can offer your enterprise, contact us.