Alder Hey automates IT support

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital has rolled out an automated IT support platform to provide remote support to more than 2,000 PCs.

The trust implemented Kaseya IT automation platform following the successful deployment of system across Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

It will now be used to manage, monitor and support more than 3,000 networked machines and provide uninterrupted access to patient information records and online services.

Dr Zafar Chaudry, chief information officer at Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust and Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “With so many PCs spread throughout the multiple hospital buildings, simply locating the machines used to be an issue.

“Using the platform’s discovery and inventory functionality, we can get a much better handle on what equipment we have onsite and better manage our repair and replacement schedule as well as report back to the NHS.”

The platform will enable IT staff to centralise IT support services and monitor and manage the infrastructure through a single integrated web-based interface, enabling them to remotely carry out patch management, asset management and network upgrades.

The new automated system will also allow the IT team to remotely review all hardware and software with the community clinics that are dispersed across the country and that require their own IT.

Before the implementation, staff had to travel to each machine in order to audit and update every PC, which impacted day to day operations at the trust.

Chaudry added: “We have a dramatically improved IT toolset that allows us to manage the full IT estate in a fraction of the time, but with the same number of staff, who can also perform operations that were not physically possible, such as full-scale patch rollouts in a matter of minutes.

Phil Sansom, vice president of UK sales, Kaseya, said: “The initial Kaseya deployment at Liverpool Women’s Hospital significantly improved the level of service that the trust could provide its users as engineers respond to problems in more strategic and efficient ways.

"To replicate this at Alder Hey not only means an even better service for patients, but also a more streamlined and cost effective IT function for the whole trust.”

Link: Kaseya