- CentraStage device management technology helps INPS support over 2300 GP practices and support over 40,000 users across the UK health sector
- CentraStage provides INPS with a single cloud-based system on which to manage all of its clients’ IT environments
- The UK health sector IT is undergoing a period of seismic change, and providers are under pressure to deliver not just quality technical solutions, but world class service and support.
Background: INPS develops, deploys and supports Vision, a flexible suite of clinical software solutions that are used extensively across the UK healthcare sector. INPS provides ICT support to over 2300 GP surgeries, Clinical Commissioning Groups and health boards across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Before deploying CentraStage, INPS had no centralised visibility and management of the IT estate running Vision, meaning support for customers and users was reactive, with problems only being addressed after they arose.
In deploying CentraStage’s cloud-based remote monitoring and management technology, INPS found a solution that not only could scale to the device volumes required, but could do so at a workable cost. With the project to deploy CentraStage now complete, INPS can now deliver proactive support to all Vision customers, allowing them to get on the front foot when it comes to supporting their systems across thousands of GP practices.
Client testimonial box out: Phil Stickland, Head of Service Delivery at INPS explains: “CentraStage has enabled INPS to transform the way we support our customers. By adopting the CentraStage platform we can proactively manage our products and services through a scalable cloud-based platform.
“Not only do our customers see the benefits of CentraStage, but over the last year CentraStage has helped us grow our service offering. Their SaaS remote monitoring and management tool is a genuine game-changer for our business and our customers – it has kept our systems running, and enables us to maintain a reliable Vision service to primary care providers, including most of the GP surgeries, CCGs and health boards in the UK.”
The benefits of CentraStage’s cloud-based solution: INPS chose CentraStage’s cloud-based IT management service to help them provide the best service possible to their clients; not only by helping their teams to monitor and manage vast numbers of hugely sensitive IT environments; but also by providing INPS with a truly scalable, remotely manageable and proactive service.
With CentraStage INPS can ensure all of their remote systems are up to date, secure and patched, meaning patient information is readily available and doctors can quickly and easily pull up medical records remotely. This in turn improves the ability of Vision users throughout the UK health sector to focus on providing high-level care to their patients.
Phil Stickland explains: “CentraStage eliminates the need in many cases for our customers to get involved in technical issues through its simple identification, reporting and automatic ticketing system alongside its seamless integration with the INPS service management system. This obviously benefits our customers enormously, saving them time and allowing them to focus more of their time on their own jobs.”
“CentraStage has and will continue to be key to enhancing the availability, stability and performance of our service. The reliance of real-time interoperability of services is critical and CentraStage plays a vital role in maintaining this through, for example, the monitoring and management of background messaging services. If a critical service were to fail, CentraStage will attempt to resolve the issue automatically and alert our support teams.”
A key benefit of CentraStage is its ability to deploy application updates and patches very effectively to large numbers of customer systems. INPS has been using CentraStage for managing software releases to its data centre hosted managed services for the last 6 months with great success, resulting in a 50% reduction in costs and vastly improved deployment rates.
CentraStage is now being used in a pilot project in a large number of LAN-hosted practices with a view to rolling it out nationally. Initial results and feedback have been very positive and the move will ensure INPS is well prepared for the future, given that the number and frequency of new software releases is predicted to grow significantly.
Phil Stickland adds: “Our engineers have just completed a complex installation of messaging components to over 600 servers. Using CentraStage to automate that installation through its built-in scripting facility means we have been able to make a 90% resource saving on the project, compared to individual manual installation.
“Auditing, version control and configuration are key areas for INPS. Service interoperability and the provision of greater numbers of services hosted concurrently makes the management of version control and systems configuration more vital than ever before. It is critical that INPS is able to achieve this, not just on its own managed services, but on all implementations, including our customer infrastructure. This will mean we can plan national releases in the knowledge that all the necessary prerequisites and dependencies have been accounted for.”
Unlike an on-site or on premise hardware infrastructure, CentraStage can easily be scaled to enable INPS to manage ever-growing infrastructures. By adopting CentraStage’s platform, INPS is able to reduce local infrastructure management; they can also cut out the cost of new software and updates to existing software programs and the required on-site IT personnel.
Christian Nagele, CentraStage CEO, explains: “CentraStage is designed and built for exactly the scenario INPS find themselves in. We can keep the cogs turning and let INPS do what they do best by supporting a large and distributed IT environment, where the better known enterprise IT management platforms do not fit both commercially and technically.”
Phil Stickland concludes: “The NHS has rigorous and stringent security and information governance regulations in place, and rightly so. The CentraStage project with has demonstrated how innovative cloud-based technology can deliver game-changing results even in such a highly-regulated, compliance-driven and security conscious industry. We continue to focus on delivering industry-leading hosted clinical systems, with our r service management systems now underpinned by CentraStage.”
