At the beginning of 2020, reoccurring hardware failures compromised the hospital’s resiliency and ability to process increased quantities of COVID-19 and additional pathology tests. Before the pandemic, the hospital’s IT team knew its systems were at capacity and unable to tackle a large-scale challenge. It was clear that equipment upgrades, process improvements and a disaster recovery solution were urgently needed to ensure systems remained up and running to support patient care.
The Head of IT Project Delivery approached Service Express to address the hospital’s mission-critical needs to ensure clinical services were not jeopardised.
System failures posed a significant risk to hospital data and operations
The pandemic accelerated the demand to develop a long-term solution to ensure IT infrastructure meets the facility’s growing needs. Service Express identified the following challenges:
- Outdated operating systems and SQL databases
- Systems at capacity and frequently running out of disk space
- Unable to upload and share data with two-way communication to partner hospitals due to outdated systems and limited resources
- Lack of disaster recovery systems or processes requiring the team to manually copy and paste data in the event of a significant event or failure
Industry:
Healthcare
Location:
Ipswich, UK
“If the system goes down for a significant amount of time – a matter of hours – all clinical services come to a grinding halt which puts patients at risk. We asked Service Express and the application system suppliers to help us accelerate this at an unprecedented speed. The team came up with solutions to anything we threw at them!”
– Head of IT Project Delivery
New hardware was tested, delivered and implemented in less than one month
The hospital previously underwent a similar hardware refresh, albeit on a smaller scale, the project took the team around six months to complete. Due to the project’s urgency, the team challenged Service Express to accomplish the necessary refresh within a limited timeframe. Service Express’ delivery team worked around the clock to design and implement a solution remotely to limit face-to-face contact during the pandemic.
- Upgraded hardware, operating systems, SQL databases and antivirus
- Created a custom two-way API to share and receive data from partner hospitals
- Addressed disaster recovery concerns with a parallel server, ensuring patient data remains available in the event of downtime
Gained peace of mind knowing patients’ data is secure and easily accessible
By partnering with Service Express to upgrade systems, address disaster recovery processes and connect data to partner facilities, the hospital can now scale its existing environment without impacting productivity. With reliable equipment, clinicians can continue to plan for future initiatives and treat their patients without worry.
