Charleston ENT & Allergy enlists eGroup Enabling Technologies for a Technology Strategy Review
Since 1997, Charleston ENT & Allergy’s mission has been to serve the people and families of South Carolina with superior, comprehensive, and convenient care. Their commitment to these core values has allowed Charleston ENT & Allergy to expand from one to seventeen locations, and build their own nationally accredited surgical center, The Surgery Center of Charleston, as well as a state-of-the-art Sinus Institute. Charleston ENT & Allergy’s applications and IT infrastructures support 17 locations across a single region with a staff of 370 individuals providing care for ear, nose, throat, and head and neck conditions.
Challenges
Throughout the Technology Strategy Review, Charleston ENT & Allergy had a number of Organizational Challenges and Concerns needing addressed, including IT Leadership and Management questioning who is evaluating their IT staff needs versus just responding to staff needs. In addition, they desired to improve Data Protection, improve and enhance Security, and improve Technical and Operational Leadership– all while being able to enhance their ability for file sharing. These enhanced technology capabilities would give Charleston ENT & Allergy the ability to nimbly expand their services into additional healthcare practices while supporting the IT needs of their practices.
How eGroup Enabling Technologies Helped
eGroup Enabling Technologies assisted Charleston ENT & Allergy by completing a Technology Strategy Review that enabled them to obtain the necessary building blocks to strengthen their technology operations. An optimized portfolio of technology investments is the driving force in accomplishing rapid digital transformation. An eGroup Enabling Technologies Technology Strategy Review facilitates “shedding the weight” of underutilized technology and reinvesting the savings into technology and initiatives that drive innovation, and are fit for the task at hand.
Looking at both the technical landscape and operational practices, eGroup Enabling Technologies determines how the organization should invest or reinvest in specific technologies based on four classifications.
- Build or Modernize technologies that provide value to the future plans of the organization while being low-risk
- Migrate technologies that run on outdated technology or are being offered by high-risk providers
- Retire technologies that may have missing functionality, or are housed on unsuitable platforms
- Retain technologies that are often inexpensive to run or extraordinarily effective in their delivery
The specific scope of discovery and evaluation is summarized below:
- Evolution of the Datacenter, Co-Location, and Cloud Migration
- WiFi
- SD Wan
- Rightsizing Resources
- Capital Expenses Moving to Demand-Based Operational Expense
- Increasing Security Resources
Based on the evaluation and completion of the Technology Strategy Review eGroup Enabling Technologies made the following recommendations to Charleston ENT & Allergy.
- Enhance Onboarding and Separation Procedures
- Develop a Process for Measuring Needs vs. Solutions vs. Costs
- Improve Asset Management with consideration for Azure Sentinel
- Evaluate Telephony, by moving to softphones and embracing Microsoft Teams for Audio Conferencing
- Establish a Contracts Repository, possibly via SharePoint
- Leverage Single Sign-On (SSO) wherever possible via Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
- Enhance Document security through the use of SharePoint and OneDrive vs. File Servers
- Deploy Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) using Microsoft Authenticator
- Modernize Endpoint Security
- Establish Conditional / Minimum access rules
- Evaluate Intune for Policy Management and Enforcement
- Move from image to Autopilot to allow for automated set up anywhere in the world
- Move the existing datacenter of 69 virtual servers to Microsoft Azure
- Eliminate Office Server Infrastructure by moving domain controllers to Microsoft Azure
- Monitor the application landscape and continue to move to cloud apps where possible
- Displace Katalyst WebEx with Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing
- Displace GoSecure with Microsoft 365 Security
- Migration of Tableau to PowerBI
Due to the above evaluations and recommendations and through the elimination and reduction in costs, the TPOA provided Charleston ENT & Allergy with the ability to reallocate $56,000 in annual costs.
Results, Return on Investment, and Future Plans
Through the Technology Strategy Review eGroup Enabling Technologies delivered a go-forward plan of success for Charleston ENT & Allergy in which they will continue to recognize cost savings while also implementing industry-leading solutions that will streamline the success and security of Charleston ENT& Allergy now and in the future.
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