Security Management, Client Management, Server Management, Data Governance, Compliance

Executive Summary

Overview
Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY), the largest not-for-profit home health care organization in the country, provides care for more than 138,000 patients in the New York metro area. VNSNY
made nearly 2.5 million home visits in 2008 for patients residing throughout New York City and in Nassau and Westchester Counties. The agency consists of more than 13,300 employees, including approximately 2,800 nurses, 575 rehabilitation therapists (physical, occupational, and speech), 6,500 home health aides, 640 social workers, and 135 other clinical professionals.

Barriers
Each day, VNSNY clinicians provide health care services to more than 30,000 New Yorkers in the patients’ homes. Each clinician carries a laptop or tablet computer containing the patient’s medical history and current condition, which he or she updates with each visit. The tablet or laptop computer has a wireless broadband connection which the clinician uses to exchange data with the main VNSNY database without having to come into the VNSNY office. The agency also stores patient credit card records in its financial systems. VNSNY is deeply committed to managing and protecting the technology and the critical data contained within these systems, and to quickly adapt to evolving health care and privacy compliance requirements. At the same time, the not-for-profit agency is committed to managing costs; and as a service organization running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, maintaining essential continuity of care and information exchange among all of the clinicians caring for the patient. To meet all of these objectives, the agency determined to consolidate and fortify its security management processes; become increasingly proactive in monitoring and managing the technology environment; upgrade its defenses against unauthorized access and security threats; and expedite its response to security events.

The Solution
In order to improve data governance and information system security, VNSNY evolved a comprehensive security program. The following products have been implemented as part of the program:

• Symantec Security Information Manager to automatically collect and manage log data, and to improve monitoring and response to security events
• Altiris Client Management Suite from Symantec to reduce the cost of ownership for desktops, laptops and tablets through its proactive patch and inventory management capabilities (implemented with the help of Symantec Consulting Services)
• Symantec DeepSight Threat Management System to enable proactive, customized security threat intelligence
• Altiris Wise Package Studio to package software updates
• Symantec Endpoint Encryption to secure critical data

Product implementations still underway include Altiris Service & Asset Management Suite from Symantec to improve IT asset lifecycle management, Symantec Endpoint Protection to provide comprehensive security for the organization’s endpoints, Symantec Network Access Control to ensure that all endpoints accessing the network comply with security policies, and Altiris Server Management Suite from Symantec to centralize server management.

VNSNY had previously implemented Symantec AntiVirus for malware protection, Veritas NetBackup from Symantec for data backups at the regional sites, and Symantec Ghost Solution Suite for device imaging and deployment. The agency is currently considering Symantec Control Compliance Suite as a means to further automate and reduce the cost of regulatory compliance.

Benefits
The different Symantec solutions are enabling VNSNY to realize tangible business value in a number of different areas. A Total Operational and Economic Impact (TOEI™) analysis by The Alchemy Solutions Group, which compared the cost to achieve key results today with the cost VNSNY would have incurred to achieve the same results before the current program, pinpointed the following realized and projected business value:

• Security Information Management Labor Productivity Gains: $159,537 in IT labor productivity gains through improved security management from July 2008 through December 2011
• Automated Inventory Management Labor Productivity Gains: $122,594 in IT labor productivity gains through streamlined inventory management from January 2009 through December 2011
• Proactive Patch Management Labor Productivity Gains: $1,272,937 in IT labor productivity gains through expedited patch management from January 2009 through December 2011
• Customized Threat Management Labor Productivity Gains: $244,158 in IT labor
productivity improvements

For more information on Alchemy Group or to download this document, go to http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/