Health Service Executive Case Study | Data Centre Services

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Leading the WayCreating Ireland’s � rst National Health Data Centre

In 2009 the Health Service Executive (HSE) relocated and consolidated key ICT systems with eircom to create its � rst ever National Health Data Centre in Clonshaugh. The HSE kept the risks of this signi� cant change programme under control by leveraging eircom’s programme management experience.

Delivering health and social services to more than 4.3 million people in Ireland, the Health Service Executive (HSE) faces the signi� cant challenge of meeting the varied service needs of a growing population, while achieving strict cost control objectives. The organisation has a strong internal ICT competency and for the past number of years has leveraged the resources of trusted partners to host selected HSE applications, leaving its own team free to focus on ICT issues of strategic importance.

In 2008, when the HSE went to the market to re-tender for hosting services, it did so with a clear vision of its ICT strategy, and needed a partner who could help it deliver on its objectives. The concept was to create Ireland’s � rst National Health Data Centre, creating a robust and highly secure platform which could house all current and future ICT systems for HSE hospitals and health service of� ces nationwide. The Centre would also become home to a growing range of services coming online, including the HSE’s upcoming national medical imaging project. After considering its options, the HSE chose eircom.

“The success of the HSE ICT Strategy depends on the provision of a robust platform and architecture, upon which critical services can be better managed. The establishment of the National Health Data Centre in partnership with eircom is signi� cant as it not only provides a best in class platform to help us to deliver on this objective, but also meets our cost and ef� ciency targets.”

Gerard Hurl,National ICT Director, Health Service Executive

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State of the ArtHosting and managed services

The scale and calibre of eircom’s Clonshaugh facility, Ireland’s newest state-of-the-art hosting and managed services datacentre, also delivered vital reassurance to the HSE.

“Clonshaugh is obviously an extremely advanced facility that uses new technologies and some green techniques like free to air cooling, which help us control our energy costs,” said Pat Thornton, General Manager for Network and Security Operations, HSE. “We � rst looked at the Clonshaugh facility when it was in development, and we’ve seen it go from a shell to its new, fully operational self.”

Risk-managed transition

The eircom programme management team was tasked with working in close partnership with the HSE to effect the complete and ef� cient changeover of all applications, while ensuring an absolute minimum of downtime for end-users and protecting the security of sensitive health data at all times. Simultaneously, the two organisations co-operated closely to architect the new National Health Data Centre to ensure it met all essential requirements for scalability, security, data privacy, availability, connectivity and resilience.

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“We found eircom very good to work with during this whole transition process. They appointed good project managers who helped steer things rapidly, kept on top of all issues and they were very professional all along the way. They were also open to our suggestions for change, even when it probably impacted them � nancially.

We saw the opportunity in several cases to improve the overall layout and con� guration of our systems in the data centre. Because we were moving our equipment anyway, we wanted to take those opportunities to do things better, and eircom worked with us on that. The relationship has worked out very well.”

Pat Thornton, General Manager, Network & Security Operations, Health Service Executive

Partnershipeircom delivers for HSE

A strong working relationship between eircom and HSE delivered a successful transition and launch of the Centre in June 2009:

Ef� cient relocation of an extensive ICT infrastructure: More than 200 servers across 40 racks were in scope for installation into Clonshaugh, with the majority of these being transitioned from the existing data centre.

Discovery process contributes to project success:eircom’s extensive discovery process detailed inventory and support requirements and helped deliver an ef� cient transition.

Project segmentation ensures a manageable transition: eircom programme managers phased the migration of critical systems and applications into nine separate moves, helping minimise the impact on end-users and achieve optimal ef� ciencies at the new Centre as incoming systems were brought online. Each of the nine moves was scoped as an individual project, with speci� c targets and discrete signoff.

Maximum security for sensitive health data: Basing its new Centre at Clonshaugh allows the HSE to bene� t from the physical security and world-class resources of the eircom managed services centre, and delivers the best possible peace of mind for all HSE stakeholders as critical clinical and patient data is protected. Best-in-class ICT security protocols employed by eircom during transition and installation also delivered essential protection for sensitive data.

Flexible working methods protect users against downtime: To help meet the HSE’s target of zero downtime for users, eircom strove to deliver maximum � exibility on working methods, concentrating the majority of transition work into weekend and out-of-hour timeframes.

The National Health Data Centre has already helped the HSE achieve its objective of cost reduction in its data centre services. This commercial bene� t, along with a risk managed transition delivered through eircom’s proven programme management methodologies, has made the project a strong success for the HSE. eircom’s extensive capacity and services portfolio at Clonshaugh also offers true scalability and � exibility as the HSE looks forward to its future needs.

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