TRANSFORMING THE HEALTH SECTOR WITH MICROSOFT 365
St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) looks to the cloud to define a new way of providing health services—free of the encumbrances of on-premises infrastructure and yesterday’s workplace tools. The health network, consisting of 10 hospitals and 300 sites across 10 counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has embarked on a digital health transformation journey using the Microsoft 365 productivity cloud to empower its 15,000 employees with intuitive tools that protect sensitive information, optimize health team collaboration, and improve patient experience.
St. Luke’s turned to the cloud for speed, security, and agility. They’re getting rid of infrastructure and automating IT processes, so they can shift skills to sourcing and delivering more business value-added solutions. With Microsoft, they implemented multiple security software enhancements in less than four months. With a cloud solution, they’re only paying for what they actually use, reducing costs.
The beauty of a lot of the Microsoft platforms, especially Teams and Yammer, is that they're all built with security behind them, including encryption and other tools that ensure the data shared is very safe.
SECURING HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS TO IMPROVE CARE
SLUHN has clear priorities when it comes to its digital health transformation: improve patient and employee experience through highly secure health team communications that help protect sensitive data. Any threat that gains access to a network could gain access to all records. Right now, health records are considered very valuable by malicious hackers.
Enabling mobility and agility at this level requires a balance between giving providers the tools they need and protecting personal health data to comply with regulations, something that Finkelstein sees as his first priority at SLUHN. The beauty of Microsoft 365 tools is that they make it easy to help secure health information and empower care teams at the same time. With Microsoft Teams deployed on mobile devices, providers connect through chat, video, and voice. Employees also access the network’s electronic medical record (EMR) and scheduling software, creating a mobile hub for efficient patient care.
SLUHN has a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program. It uses Microsoft Intune to manage the mobile devices providers and administrative staff carry with them in clinical and office settings to access Office 365 apps, EMR data, and SLUHN’s scheduling solution. Maintaining compliance while enabling BYOD is much simpler now that they can compartmentalize work and personal apps on the phone. If a staff member loses their device, or leaves the network, it’s a simple matter to wipe data from the Outlook client and any SLUHN business apps.
SIMPLIFYING SECURITY WITH INTEROPERABLE SOLUTIONS
SLUHN takes advantage of the interoperable intelligent security services within Microsoft 365—across Windows 10, Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility + Security—to save time while enhancing the hospital network’s security posture. With a single suite of interoperable, cloud-based security services, IT staffers don’t have to piece together disparate solutions
SLUHN takes advantage of a triumvirate of advanced threat protection (ATP) solutions available in Microsoft 365: Microsoft Defender ATP, which is built into the Windows 10 operating system and helps prevent and respond to cyberthreats; Office 365 ATP, a cloud-based email filtering service that helps protect email and data in Office 365 apps; and Microsoft Azure ATP, which helps SLUHN protect employee identities and alerts IT to unusual behavior.
Using Microsoft Defender ATP, SLUHN can see exactly when a threat enters the system, its impact, and any remediation steps to take.
PROTECTING DATA IN CLOUD APPLICATIONS
Midway through a Microsoft Cloud App Security deployment, SLUHN has already gained visibility into its many unmanaged, third-party software as a service (SaaS) apps, solving a major pain point.
Cloud App Security has already discovered unsupported apps, a huge help in closing down potential data leak and they now have the ability to block unsupported cloud applications with one click.
BOOSTING COMPLIANCE
When Finkelstein joined SLUHN five years ago, his job was to build a policy process standard that allowed the network to be much more data compliant with regards to moving, storing, and encrypting data. There were 22 solutions for security and compliance, which required multiple “bolt-ons” to connect and monitor endpoints and devices across the network. It was a daunting effort for IT staff.
SLUHN looks forward to using Microsoft Information Protection to simplify how it complies with HIPAA, especially when it comes to data loss protection. Now that Microsoft Information Protection includes exact data matching capabilities, we’ll be better equipped to prevent leakage of specific patient social security numbers, addresses, and birth dates, not just generic number ranges.
As SLUHN deploys Microsoft 365 security and compliance solutions to support its digital health transformation, the network also improves overall patient experience.
“Thanks to Microsoft 365, that’s one more way we can differentiate the culture of care at St. Luke’s.”
— SLUHN
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