Reference story - Icare
Icare ensures quality
1100 stable and fast care workspaces in one month
The health care institution Icare was having stability and performance problems due to a fragmented Citrix environment. Following proper preparation, its problems were solved within a month using RES PowerFuse and Microsoft SoftGrid.
Dynamic organization
The healthcare sector is on the move and Icare is aware of this like no other. The organization is part of Evean Groep, which also comprises GGZ Drenthe and Zorggroep Meander. Evean Groep is in turn part of Espria, a joint venture between Evean Groep, Philadelphia and Woonzorg Nederland.
Icare offers its customers numerous services such as home care, maternity care, child day care, volunteer aid and youth care. Its head office is in Meppel in the Netherlands, however the organization also has no fewer than 70 locations spread out over 7 provinces in the north and east of the Netherlands: from Utrecht to Friesland. The IT department manages a total of 1100 employee workspaces throughout the company’s different departments which range from care and planning to HRM and finance. The servers are sited in Meppel and the locations are connected to each other by means of a VPN network.
Unique product
As time went by, the automation of the workspace became fragmented. It was a heterogeneous server-based computing environment which incorporated different versions and applications which were not always set up in the same way. This resulted in the ICT infrastructure being slow. The service desk had its hands full with problem-solving, which meant that the management organization had no time left to concentrate on strategy and the development of long-term policies.
The solution was to be found in RES PowerFuse. Kelly Veerman, technical project leader at Icare, didn’t need much time to make his choice. “It is a unique product, which is why we only looked at a few other applications. Our first analysis revealed at once that it could be the right solution for Icare. After all, PowerFuse was already in use at Evean, and our ICT manager, Olav Palm, already had experience with the software. Consequently, we were all quickly able to reach an agreement and get the project started.”
Big bang
The implementation plan was written by Datad of Veenendaal. Mr Veerman told us, “They handled the initiation phase themselves. The preparation period lasted several months, which gave us plenty of time so that afterwards we were able to migrate all 1100 workspaces within a month. This kind of ‘big bang’ is less painful to an organization and employees see the benefits more quickly.”
So what are these benefits? “For our IT organization the benefits are immense. We can manage all applications and workspaces much more simply and more quickly. Furthermore, security is in great shape and the employees at head office and around our various locations are noticing that their workspace is more stable and that they can work more quickly. It is also apparent that the service desk gets fewer calls and so at last we have time for other important matters such as proactive management, quality improvement and long-term IT policy-making.”
Extra settings for care applications
The project was not aimed at reducing the number of applications. This was an explicit choice, which Veerman gladly explains. “Our initial objective was improved stability and performance. The choice for certain applications lies with our care clients so all we at the IT department can do is offer the best advice we can. A reduction in the number of applications would have become a complicated and long-winded operation. First we wanted to resolve the performance issues, then we would make all the current applications available in the new environment.”
RES PowerFuse turned out to be in its element among the tremendous diversity of care applications. “Every department has its own programs, e.g. for diets or maternity care, and not all of them are standard. For such applications, PowerFuse allows extra settings via the user interface, enabling us to manage them effortlessly. This is an important advantage for us and no doubt for other care organizations too.”
Only tested solutions
For the streaming solution, Icare chose Microsoft SoftGrid instead of Citrix. Kelly Veerman explains why. “As a health care provider, you don’t want to take the lead in technology. IT is a means to an end, so when given a choice we go for tried and tested solutions. Microsoft SoftGrid has been on the market for quite some time and it works fine with PowerFuse. We were able to stop using the Citrix silos, so now we can run more applications on a server without conflicts.”
Icare only needed to set up one workspace for the whole organization. Veerman: “That makes a huge difference to our system management. The only differences are in the available printers and various backgrounds. As far as the applications are concerned, we only have to enter user access rules in the PowerFuse database using, for example, the departmental information in Active Directory. We are then able to centrally manage all workspaces, applications, printers and security.”
Focus on the future
How does Veerman look back on the whole project? “Extremely positively. We are tremendously satisfied with PowerFuse as it lives up to all of our expectations. Our employees have everything they need and they are delighted with their quick, new workspaces. The service desk has more time to answer queries and our department can once again focus on the future.”
RES PowerFuse’s added value turned out chiefly to be in our non-standard care applications which we were able to add to the user interface via extra settings.
Kelly Veerman, Icare Technical Project Leader, Netherlands