Addenbrooke's Trust

Case Study Access Solutions 09/01/2007

Background

Addenbrooke's Trust, part of Cambridge University Hospitals National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust serves approximately 500,000 people in Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK). The trust is not only a local hospital and the teaching hospital for the University of Cambridge, but it is a centre for specialist services and a UK leader in research and development. With about 6,500 staff, Addenbrooke's trust provides a wide range of clinical and non-clinical services.

Requirement

No matter the time of day or night, any one of Addenbrooke's 400 medical specialists could be called upon to make potentially life-saving decisions. Doctors often receive phone calls during the night, requiring them to make a diagnosis after consulting test results, such as X-rays. Previously, a doctor would have to travel from home to the hospital - sometimes many miles away - to look at these tests.

Addenbrooke's wanted to speed up delivery of patient care by giving doctors real-time access to patients' records and test results at anytime and from anywhere.

As a UK healthcare provider, Addenbrooke's needed to meet best practice guidelines set out by government agency NHS Connecting for Health when providing electronic access to records. These guidelines demand two-factor strong authentication - such as domain authentication and smartcards - to confirm the identity of users who access the network externally.

Dr Geoffrey D Smith, deputy technical manager at Addenbrooke's Trust, explained: "The challenge was to provide flexible working conditions for our doctors in a way that would continue to safeguard patient information and meet NHS best practice guidelines."

Solution

Addenbrooke's approached ISC Networks. The UK solution provider had worked with the trust before in a project to link its network with the university training hospital environment. The project - called Secure Hospital Access from the University Network (SHAUN) - enabled 100 honorary consultants to access patient data held on the trust's network. SHAUN it is still the only successful example of how to link a trust network with a university training hospital within NHS guidelines and rules.

For the new remote access project, called Secure Hospital Access from Multiple User Sites (SHAMUS), ISC Networks suggested a solution based on Citrix technology, with Access Gateway, interfacing software, and two-factor authentication provided through RSA SecurID tokens. Cisco PIX provided a Cisco Intrusion Detection System that - used in conjunction with 'syslogger' software - provided email-based notification of possible attacks on the firewall. ISC Networks is a Gold Citrix Solution Advisor, and its team of experts was able to easily host Addenbrooke's applications on Citrix Presentation Server.

Shamus met two requirements: security and scalability. With Access Gateway and RSA SecurID tokens, the trust now has inherent security, allowing it to ensure that employees can only access information that is relevant to their role. In addition, the solution is modular, so Addenbrooke's can easily add new users without major hardware or support expenses.

Summary of Product Solution

PIX 515 Firewall with failover
Citrix Presentation Server 4 running on HP DL360 Dual Processor servers
Citrix Access Gateway
Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
SafeWord for Citrix
RSA Secure ID tokens
Installation/Consultancy/Training
Support

"The decision to work with ISC was based not only on cost, but also the fact that it had all the necessary expertise with the technology involved, ensuring that time spent on development and integration of the components would be minimised. Without ISC's input, SHAUN and SHAMUS would not have been successful," said Dr Geoffrey D Smith, deputy technical manager, Addenbrooke's Trust

Benefits

Secure and flexible access to confidential records
Seamless connection to systems with minimal business interruption
Ease of support for IT employees
Improved functionality and accessibility to information
Ability to support future expansion
High levels of performance and reliability

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