Defeating Ransomware

Overview

Ransomware has become a “when not if” scenario for many enterprises and the healthcare industry has been aggressively targeted by bad actors in the recent years.  This client, a mid-sized health services provider was one of the unfortunate victims of such an attack and had been shut down by a crypto-locker that targeted their core systems. 

Problems

Given the critical nature of the services this client provided to patients across their facilities, resolving this issue in an accelerated fashion but while maintaining strict confidentiality was a paramount concern and so they turned to one of their trusted partners.

Solution

As a trusted advisor, A2U immediately deployed a team of six people with the optimal mix of multi-disciplinary skillsets with the singular focus on restoring business operations as quickly and safely as possible.  Working with the client, A2U was able to develop a process that leveraged an uninfected backup snapshot and in a joint effort requiring complex co-ordination they were able safely restore each device and machine while also updating with the required patches to ensure that systems were brought back online. 

A2U developed, managed and executed a multi-faceted program that restored applications based on business priority and were able to turn over a fully functional environment for core and client systems within 48 hours of initial engagement.  In addition to minimizing the business disruption, A2U was able to help this client avoid the payment of an exorbitant ransom.

Upon successful resumption of business, A2U has continued to advise this client on the design and implementation of new operational processes, security and other technology solutions and services to better harden their environments going forward to keep them delivering essential healthcare services to their patients.

A2U solves everyday IT issues across all verticals and company sizes, providing technology solutions, professional and managed services to optimize the value of our client’s technology investments.

Learn More About A2U

Solution

As a trusted advisor, A2U immediately deployed a team of six people with the optimal mix of multi-disciplinary skillsets with the singular focus on restoring business operations as quickly and safely as possible.  Working with the client, A2U was able to develop a process that leveraged an uninfected backup snapshot and in a joint effort requiring complex co-ordination they were able safely restore each device and machine while also updating with the required patches to ensure that systems were brought back online. 

A2U developed, managed and executed a multi-faceted program that restored applications based on business priority and were able to turn over a fully functional environment for core and client systems within 48 hours of initial engagement.  In addition to minimizing the business disruption, A2U was able to help this client avoid the payment of an exorbitant ransom.

Upon successful resumption of business, A2U has continued to advise this client on the design and implementation of new operational processes, security and other technology solutions and services to better harden their environments going forward to keep them delivering essential healthcare services to their patients.

Accelerating Healthcare Services

Overview

Time is a critical metric in the delivery of healthcare services to patients and this client was challenged with how to give more time back to their most critical resources, the front-line healthcare workers who struggled with an inefficient user experience when accessing applications on their client devices in hospital facilities.

Problems

This large integrated healthcare system with approximately 20,000 employees across over 130 facilities had a significant issue with productivity due to the extended wait times it took for their users to access applications. With the average time a clinician can spend with a patient is between 12 to 14 minutes, every unproductive second is magnified in its impact and this drove this client to look for a partner to help them.

Solution

They turned to A2U because of their deep experience with all elements of end user computing environments from the devices through to the virtualized application delivery technologies. A2U started by decomposing the user profiles and the overall business process and workflows in order to develop a solution that focused on improving the patient experience. By developing a design that applied use case context to data and application usage, they were able to architect a solution that was deployed across 5000 plus clinical devices with over 10,000 clinical users.

 

This solution improved the time to productivity by over 30 times the previous experience and clinical users were able to serve their patients in as a little as 2 seconds.

 

Beyond the tremendous productivity gain, this streamlined experience greatly improved the ability for this client to deliver exceptional healthcare services by directly improving the clinician and patient interaction, which is truly is the most important metric.

A2U solves everyday IT issues across all verticals and company sizes, providing technology solutions, professional and managed services to optimize the value of our client’s technology investments.

Learn More About A2U

Solution

They turned to A2U because of their deep experience with all elements of end user computing environments from the devices through to the virtualized application delivery technologies. A2U started by decomposing the user profiles and the overall business process and workflows in order to develop a solution that focused on improving the patient experience. By developing a design that applied use case context to data and application usage, they were able to architect a solution that was deployed across 5000 plus clinical devices with over 10,000 clinical users.

 

This solution improved the time to productivity by over 30 times the previous experience and clinical users were able to serve their patients in as a little as 2 seconds.

 

Beyond the tremendous productivity gain, this streamlined experience greatly improved the ability for this client to deliver exceptional healthcare services by directly improving the clinician and patient interaction, which is truly is the most important metric.