The Doctor's Clinic
Located in Kitsap County, a rural suburban community west of Seattle, Washington, The Doctors Clinic is a multi-specialty group with a 70-year history of medical excellence. Launched by just two physicians, it now employs 450 people, including 80 healthcare providers who work from seven locations to deliver 25 primary care, internal medicine and surgical specialties. The organization deals with over 235,500 unique patient appointments a year and more than 72,000 patients receive regular treatment. The Doctors Clinic has recently become part of the Catholic Health Initiative (CHI) Franciscan Health.
Customer Snapshot
- • Industry: Healthcare
- • Location: Washington State, USA
- • Company Size: 450 Employees
- • Website: www.thedoctorsclinic.com
The Challenge
- • Provide a transparent IT foundation that is not a barrier to efficient healthcare
- • Ensure the security of sensitive patient data
- • Deliver a scalable solution to support future growth
The Solution
- • Cisco UCS, Cisco ISE, Cisco Umbrella, Cisco networking solutions, Cisco Contact Center, Cisco Security, third party Wi-Fi and storage systems
- • Implementing Cisco VoIP with the help of Right Systems reduced the telephony bill by $64,000 a year
- • Having a sound IT infrastructure enables The Doctors Clinic to comply with data security legislation and build on its 70-year history of providing medical excellence and compassionate care
Creating Vital Networks on a Greenfield site
Having joined The Doctors Clinic at the end of 2004, its current IT Manager, Jeff Goddard, describes the challenges he faced: “The organization was going through changes and growth challenges and had no IT department to speak of. Technology had an important place in its healthcare delivery, but it had fallen behind in this respect.”
A major leap forward was the construction of a new, three-story medical office facility, the Salmon Medical Center, which opened in 2005.
“When I first visited the building in November 2004, the new server room was just an empty space with no sign of cabling or data networking,” says Goddard. “I was Cisco certified from my previous work with the City of Seattle, so I contacted the Cisco account manager for our area and was immediately introduced to Right! Systems. That was the start of a good professional relationship that has continued until the present day.
Significant Savings from VoIP
In this initial encounter, Goddard worked with Right! Systems to define, architect and implement the core of a network with Cisco routers and switches that would not only support the new building but also prepare for the subsequent installation of Electronic Health Records and a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS).
At that time, the two organizations also formulated a five-year plan which standardized on Cisco solutions – an exercise that has subsequently been repeated many times. End-of-life access switches were replaced in 2007 and another milestone was the implementation of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony solution based on Cisco Unified Communications (UC). A subsequent project in 2015 involved the installation and implementation of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). Today, nearly 100 virtual servers reside within the UCS architecture.
“Again, Right! Systems was very instrumental in this project,” adds Goddard. “We replaced traditional Nortel analog telephony with Cisco UC in a two-year phased approach at the ten sites we then had. Right! Systems engineers did the first site and there was a great amount of knowledge transfer. The Unified Communications migration resulted in annual telecoms savings of over $64,000 which was a significant amount because we were just coming out of the global economic downturn. “In addition to the VoIP phones, we also implemented a new customer contact center with the Cisco Contact Center Express solution. We use that to re-route most incoming calls.
“Cisco’s VoIP solution not only included the phones, back end servers and software but also voicemail and contact center software. We also reached out to Right! Systems to replace an end of life Cisco firewall appliance and since that time we have gone through two refreshes. We are currently using Cisco edge firewall hardware.”
To beef up its security and threat mitigation, The Doctors Clinic was in talks with Cisco about its Cisco Umbrella cloud security platform when by coincidence, one of its users inadvertently allowed ransomware onto the network. A full implementation was considered top priority, and it was quickly accomplished by Right! Systems.
“I would say that working with Right! Systems is a priceless relationship and there are many examples that show how reliant we are on the good partnership we have with them. It has endured for many years and we hope it will continue into the foreseeable future.”
Jeffrey Goddard
IT Manager, The Doctors Clinic
Providing a Holistic Service
Although Right! Systems’ consultative and implementation services frequently involve Cisco solutions, that is not the whole story. When The Doctors Clinic wanted to implement safe, open Wi-Fi for patients, visitors and staff, it needed to investigate the technologies and again worked with Right! Systems’ knowledgeable engineers.
“They provided a holistic approach to the challenges and needs that I presented to them and with their help we implemented a very appropriate solution from another vendor,” says Goddard.
Going The Extra Mile
As well as its holistic approach Right! Systems has often gone the extra step for The Doctors Clinic and two instances underline the value of its service. When the clinic needed to relocate its Computerized Tomography (CT) and Medical Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners, it housed the equipment in a temporary trailer in the parking lot but needed to connect it to the network. Right! Systems quickly loaned it the equipment to create a point-to-point Wi-Fi connection.
Also, when The Doctors Clinic discovered that its central storage system was going end-of-support in 2018, the legacy vendor tried to sell them a new system. Right! Systems helped with a rapid evaluation and decision process which lead to a new solution from another vendor.
“With Right! Systems’ help, it could not have gone smoother or quicker. All expectations were exceeded, and we were able to replace the SAN on time and within the stated budget.
“Both these examples are a true testament to how responsive Right! Systems is and how reliant we are on the good relationship we have with them,” concludes Goddard. “I would say that working with Right! Systems is a priceless relationship. When I got here as the new guy and saw what we were embarking on with no established technology relationships it was a significant challenge.
“When Right! Systems came in they immediately provided the relationship that helped me be successful and I am very indebted to them. They are not just out to sell some boxes and go back to their office. They take time to pinpoint our business needs and come up with the right solutions.”
Transparent It To Support Efficient Patient Service
The relationship continues. The Doctors Clinic and Right! Systems are currently looking at a new data backup solution and they are also in the process of standing up the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) for the creation of and enforcement of security and access policies.
“Reliability and security have been paramount in our experience of implementing these solutions,” concludes Goddard. “They support our overall aim to make technology transparent and not allow it to create barriers that may prevent our staff from delivering the healthcare they are here to provide.”