Faronics Deep Freeze Server and The Center: Orthopedic & Neurosurgical Care & Research

History

The Center - Orthopedic & Neurosurgical Care & Research, is a for-profit medical clinic, which is part of the Orthopedic and Neurosurgical Center of the Cascades. The Center’s team includes neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists, therapists, and mid-level providers specially trained to provide compassionate and comprehensive care in the treatment of injuries to or diseases of the nervous and musculoskeletal systems.

Situation

The Center clinic employs approximately 300 people, all of whom have access to either a workstation or a desktop computer. They have about 50 PCs and 200 Thin Clients. All user data is stored in a roaming profile on a separate server. Jen Blackledge is The Center’s IT Manager, and also provides support for the Cascade Surgicenter.

Problem
All medical institutions must comply with HIPAA standards. This includes all technological equipment relating to medical care. The Center was experiencing a recurring problem of workstations being compromised by things such as invasive spyware and downloads of illegal software. HIPAA compliance was not possible with these things happening to workstations.

Ms. Blackledge was continually taking down servers and cleaning them of illegal software and spyware. Generally she spent anywhere from 2-10 hours per week cleaning the servers. This was a time consuming and expensive way to maintain them.

Solution

Ms. Blackledge saw Deep Freeze in action at a school district. The staff at the district gave the product good reviews and feedback, and gave her advice as to how to best administer the product. Having herself worked at a school district previously, Ms. Blackledge thought that if students had a hard time getting around Deep Freeze, the Center’s staff and providers would have an even harder time.

The Center also evaluated other solutions but found them all to be cumbersome and difficult to use, and that most of them required a lot of set up and maintenance time. Deep Freeze was the simplest and most effective solution, and fit The Center’s price range.

Evaluation

The Center installed Deep Freeze on its four main terminal servers. Software installation was simple and straightforward for the staff, and all problems with illegal software have disappeared. The Center currently has the servers set to reboot at midnight every day, so all illegal software, including spyware, is removed, and the staff have a fresh, clean configuration every morning.

Ms. Blackledge now spends approximately three hours every three to four weeks maintaining the servers by Thawing them, installing updates or additional software, and re-Freezing them. The time saved is a significant savings for The Center. The terminal servers now run without daily interaction and with much lower maintenance costs.