i-Virtualize: The cure for your IT pains

i-Virtualize AOPHBA Healthcare story

About the Brant County Health Unit

The Brant County Health Unit (BCHU) is one of 34 health units in Ontario that serves a population of more than 136,000 people in Brant County and the City of Brantford. The Health Unit strives to deliver high quality programs and services to address the unique health needs of our community and improve the health and well-being of our population.

PROBLEM

When the BCHU IT Manager left the organization, the CEO needed help collecting data to make better decisions regarding IT and IT’s role in the greater organization. Not only focused on their current state, he wanted to have all the information needed to create an accurate roadmap for future investments and their role in driving business outcomes.

Brent Richardson, CEO of BCHU, didn’t know where to turn for a trusted source. He reached out to a trusted colleague, who had been a partner of i-Virtualize’s for years. The recommendation made Richardson feel confident in contacting us to get the answers he needed to know where he should best invest the organization’s resources. 
 
“Having trust in a company to put our best interests first is key to creating a beneficial partnership,” explains Richardson. “We get calls every day from companies just wanting to sell us stuff, whether we need it or not. To find trustworthy IT partners is like finding a diamond in the rough.”

SOLUTION

As any healthcare provider will tell you, before any treatment is performed or medicine prescribed, there is always an assessment of the patient. For some this could be as simple as taking one’s vitals to draw a conclusion or possibly running more extensive tests to get past the symptoms to the actual problem.

 For BCHU, i-Virtualize ran a comprehensive assessment of the organization’s IT environment, including a gap assessment to compare current tools and technology against the desired state, so a plan could be designed to bridge any gaps. They also performed penetration tests to evaluate the security of the IT infrastructure by safely trying to exploit vulnerabilities.

“We came to i-Virtualize thinking that we knew what we needed. After their assessments, we learned what we truly needed,” says Richardson. 

RESULTS

i-Virtualize AOPHBA Assessment

With the findings from the assessment, i-Virtualize was able to deliver a report outlining key areas of focus for BCHU and helped them roadmap their IT spend to optimize their opportunities for expected outcomes. During this process, as with all of i-Virtualize’s engagement with our clients, the foundation for a long-lasting partnership was laid. Instead of viewing our client activities as merely transactional, we work to create partnering relationships that can benefit the client whenever they need us.

“There’s something to say about being able to pick up the phone, have them answer when we call. They speak to me at my technical level and treated me with respect,” says Richardson. “I am not an IT professional, but with i-Virtualize, I don’t have to be, and I can be confident that not only what they say is fact, but that they have my back.”

 
Organizational structures are evolving through mergers and organic growth, and some may find it difficult to expand their capabilities to address hundreds of new users or move from familiar single-tier municipality with robust IT systems and experts to something completely different. 
 
Richardson has this advice for organizations in the midst of organizational transformation, “As you begin to think about your IT needs in the future, scalability to adapt to the changing environment will be a critical consideration. To fully understand your current position and know where you need to go next, you need the team at i-Virtualize on your side.” 

 

i-Virtualize the cure for your IT pains

i-virtualize Hybrid Cloud solution

For many healthcare organizations, the weakest link on your IT is the management of your hybrid cloud. As a hybrid cloud services enabler, we’re able to help you find the sweet spot between public and private cloud, to:

  • Increase your ability to provide a more enriched continuum of care
  • Protect your patient and organizational data no matter where it resides
  • Optimize your technology’s ability to drive performance
  • Ensure business continuity in the case of an emergency or attack

Contact our team to learn how we can help your business thrive or read more of our Customer Success Stories to see how we have helped other companies realize success.