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Fairview Health:
Mastering desktop images more effectively, cheaply, and efficiently


Maintaining standards through effective desktop systems

Fairview Health Services is a not-for-profit health care system that serves Minnesota's Twin Cities and several surrounding communities. It operates six hospitals, and up to 48 clinical sites, as well as 30 retail pharmacies. Fairview’s Southdale Heart and Vascular Centre is recognised as one of the best cardiovascular centres in the US, and Fairview was named as one of “America’s best hospitals” in 10 specialist categories by U.S. News & World Report.

Across all of its sites, Fairview has 10,000 desktop PCs, which must be kept up to date in terms of hardware, operating system and applications. The machines are used across the hospital environment, by corporate executives, administrative and secretarial workers, clinical staff, and by the IT department.

Effectively patched and up-to-date, smooth-running applications are always important in any business, but especially so in healthcare. There are over 700 applications in the healthcare sector, and it is always a major challenge for IT professionals to install and configure them, especially for new operating systems such as Windows XP, where having the correct drivers is critical.

By working with ENGL, Europe’s leading Novell ZENworks specialist and using the ENGL Imaging Toolkit™, Fairview has been able to improve the efficiency of its information systems, and at the same time, keep control of its desktop support costs – all achievements that will have a positive effect on the level of care given to the hospital’s patients. Fairview has been able to introduce:

  • A more professional presentation for its PC imaging process

  • More secure management of the desktop imaging process

  • A clearly defined way of adding ‘workstations’ to its device infrastructure

  • A simpler way of dealing with Windows drivers, especially for Windows XP

  • Installation of applications before the PC owner/user logs onto the device


Curing the headache of healthcare systems

With 10,000 desktops spread across nearly 50 sites it was critical that Fairview found a new way of managing PC images. The organisation had been using Symantec’s Ghost to build a master image, but eventually such a process became unmanageable, with the image requiring two and a half CDs. John Benton, the lead analyst on operating systems for Fairview’s 7-strong Desktop Infrastructure Group explains:

    “We’d been thinking of introducing a standard imaging process three to four years ago as a way of improving the efficiency of our desktop management and had looked at using ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit as an addition to Novell ZENworks 3.2 but at the time we could not justify the investment.”
Then, 18 months ago, Fairview began using Novell ZENworks 6.5 and decided to get in touch with ENGL’s team of Novell ZENworks specialists again. Says John Benton:
    “We were in discussions with ENGL, and we had the opportunity to try out the ENGL Imaging Toolkit. We soon found that there is nothing that ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit couldn’t do in relation to building and deploying the image, and it was clear that we could make a business case for using it within a number of months.”

    “When we compared the manpower needed to do the old process and to customise PCs against using the ENGL Imaging Toolkit, we found it took 6 months to do the process manually: redeveloping, retesting and certifying that image again, against a day and a half with ENGL. And we can now add an imaging menu without doing a whole new development stage. ”
By simplifying Fairview’s imaging process and automating the rollout of desktop and laptop builds, ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit provides a secure, high-speed platform for future deployment at Fairview. From now on, users will be working from one universal base image, through a Standard Operating Environment, which reduces the number of calls to the helpdesk and the time that it takes to deal with problems.

As a result of using the ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit, Fairview has achieved the following:
  • A single ‘universal’ Windows XP base image for simplified desktop and laptop maintenance

  • A secure, fully-automated, organisation-wide Windows XP build process that can be easily upgraded to new Operating System releases in the future

  • Improved Novell ZENworks imaging that has been secured using eDirectory authentication and imaging menus

  • A lights-out deployment methodology for out-of-hours upgrades

  • The ability to pre-install applications before a user logs on.


Simplifying knowledge-transfer, improving security and enabling an efficient XP roll-out

Another less tangible, but equally important benefit for Fairview came in the form of improving knowledge transfer within the organisation. Before ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit was rolled-out, a member of the desktop maintenance staff working manually on user PCs would have to retain a lot of knowledge about the user’s image ‘in their head’. Says John Benton:

    “To transfer that knowledge to six other staff would have been very difficult to achieve. Now with the ENGL Imaging Toolkit, that process is very easy. It is difficult to quantify from a financial perspective, but it makes maintenance easier and engenders more trust in the image build process.”
Another issue for Fairview is security. Because of the safety-critical nature of the healthcare business, ensuring both operating systems and applications are fully patched is a priority for Fairview’s hospitals. What Fairview wanted to do was use the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, to provide effective authentication. ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit has allowed the IT team to ensure they get antivirus and security packages fully patched and running on any new Fairview device prior to it going live in the network. It has also meant that the Desktop team can now grant access to machines and applications based on staff roles and responsibilities.

Importantly, Fairview’s infrastructure is now ready to carry out an automated operating system rollout that will see the organisation upgrading to Windows XP from Windows 2000 in record time. John Benton concludes:
    “Utilising ZENworks together with ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit allows us to re-image someone’s machine so much more easily. And from a clinical perspective, time is money. From a vendor’s standpoint, I can’t compare ENGL with any other company. Their guys are always checking with me to ensure we’re happy. And their experience is the best I‘ve had with any vendor.”


Improved desktop manageability in a patient-care environment

Using Novell ZENworks together with the ENGL’s Imaging Toolkit has enabled Fairview’s desktop systems to meet the demanding requirements of its staff across the healthcare organisation. Fairview now has:

  • More effectively and efficiently imaged systems

  • More securely patched PCs

  • Systems that reflect the needs and roles of its staff

  • Improved knowledge-transfer within the IT department

  • Desktop staff with more time to focus on critical healthcare applications.


About ENGL

ENGL is Europe’s leading Novell ZENworks® specialists. Using its own unique methodology - ‘Smart Windows Deployment’ - ENGL designs and builds bespoke ZENworks software solutions that accelerate the development and rollout of secure Windows 2000/XP workstations and reduce the ongoing cost of PC maintenance.

ENGL is also the name behind a suite of off-the-shelf software utilities that solve the real-world technical obstacles being experienced by Novell ZENworks customers who could make cost savings by introducing hands-off PC build, imaging or Lights Out Distribution solutions. ENGL is a Novell Platinum Solutions Partner headquartered in Wantage, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.

For more information, please complete an online enquiry form or call +44 (0) 123 522 7600.

All rights reserved. Novell and ZENworks are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

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