Western Health, one of Australia's leading healthcare providers, has chosen IGEL, provider of the secure endpoint OS for now and next, to modernise its endpoint infrastructure and streamline its management systems, with guidance from its technology consulting partners, Insentra and Insight.

"We chose IGEL due to its functionality and support of multiple usage scenarios and environments Western Health uses, which allowed us to significantly improve the sustainability of our current hardware investment," said Cameron McBride, Director, Digital Technology Services, Western Health. "IGEL integrates well with Imprivata and makes connecting to multiple hosted services, including our Cerner EMR software, using the latest clients easy. It also saved Western Health money as we could continue to use 1,000 thin clients sustainably, which would not have hardware vendor support when directed to the new Microsoft Disaster Recovery AVD solution being implemented. Changing to the IGEL OS on the devices provided an improved and supported solution."

Overcoming technology challenges and meeting success criteria with IGEL

Western Health identified multiple challenges as the organisation moved forward on modernising its endpoint infrastructure to align with the investment made in updating its virtual desktop solutions. The business had set key criteria for the modernisation project in the areas of cyber security; high availability; interoperability with key internal services; serviceability by IT and users; and, hardware integration. In selecting IGEL, Western Health conducted a Proof of Value (PoV) exercise and found the IGEL solution met all the required criteria.

Brian Riegels-Morgan, a Senior Consultant at Insentra, said, "IGEL's pre-sales and support teams played pivotal roles in the successful Proof of Value (PoV), deployment, and overall customer acceptance of our services. Western Health's comprehensive utilisation of IGEL in conjunction with Citrix, Imprivata, Microsoft AVD, includes the creation of public use kiosks. These kiosks grant users access to various applications, including Zoom, LibreOffice, web browsers, and other applications, delivering a more streamlined and efficient experience for patients and visitors, while ensuring the security of sensitive information."

Overall, the deployment of IGEL at Western Health has notably enhanced user performance. McBride added, "These improvements were evident during the pilot phase initially intended for 50 devices. The overwhelmingly positive feedback prompted the rapid expansion of the pilot to encompass over 200 devices as business users recognised the enhanced functionality provided by IGEL OS."

"Today's healthcare organisations face the challenge of securing their endpoint infrastructure while operating on a tight budget," said Matthias Haas, CTO, IGEL. "IGEL's Preventative Security Model helped Western Health address the security challenges they face by eliminating endpoint vulnerabilities exploited by bad actors. Further, by supporting change management and end-user communication, we have enhanced the end-user experience while reducing the financial strain for the organisation by extending the life of their endpoint hardware. This is a great example of how large healthcare organisations can benefit from deploying IGEL."

To read more about how Western Health improved endpoint management sustainability, improved security, and enhanced the user experience with IGEL, read the case study here.