Case Study

UK 1st as All Wales Project Brings Educational Access within Reach from NHS sites

Covers Citrix MetaFrame, Centralis Integration Toolkit, Centralis consultancy and project services, bringing equality of Access to all, regardless of location, device or connection.

The Customer

Cardiff University's College of Medicine, Biology, Life and Health Sciences was established as the Welsh National School of Medicine in 1931. In 1984 the School became The University of Wales College of Medicine and incorporated the only medical and dental school in Wales. The institution is a result of a recent merger between University of Wales College of Medicine and Cardiff University in 2004. It shares a 53-acre site at Heath Park with the University Hospital of Wales within the Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust two miles north of central Cardiff. The College currently has around 1,400 staff, 4,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and many more pursuing continuing professional development courses.

Many of the College's departments are integrated with those of the hospital so that medical and dental teaching and research is combined with leading edge healthcare delivery. Other courses on offer include nursing and midwifery, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiography and operating department practice. This breadth of health-related provision is one of the reasons why the College is at the forefront of developments in inter-professional education.
 

	This emphasis on providing a solution as opposed to a set of completed tasks has been a major "plus" in our experiences to date
	Tony Rucinski, Deputy IT Director, Cardiff University

In addition to undergraduate teaching the College makes a substantial contribution to postgraduate and continuing education for healthcare professionals throughout Wales, enjoying close co-operation with the NHS throughout the nation. NHS staff contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate education and training; and hospitals and general and dental practices provide essential clinical placements for the College's students.

The Challenge

Although the College shares a very close relationship and a large campus with Wales’ largest teaching hospital, the campus is only one of their operational locations. At any one time, around half of its students and many of its staff are spread among various sites located throughout the length and breadth of Wales.

The university is committed to a strategic mission of providing equality of access to information services and collaborative productivity tools to enable ongoing excellence in healthcare research, learning and teaching, regardless of location.

To meet these strategic aims, this dispersed user population require full access to their electronic information when they are away from their “desk”; whether that is on campus from lecture theatres and libraries, or remote access from NHS and other sites. Many of the locations are subject to the strict security regulation of the NHS however, and high bandwidth connectivity is not always available.

∆ Top of page

Defining the Solution

During late ‘02 / early ‘03, the university was successful in its bid for funding to deal with the issues of both wireless networking as well as the Pan-Wales connectivity issue. The university reviewed their options, and while a wireless solution was appropriate to the campus, secure delivery to the NHS and remote sites required a broader strategic "access" solution. To define and deliver the solution, the All Wales Project was commissioned, with a project board which included Cardiff & The Vale NHS Trust, Cardiff University and Health Solutions Wales. The project’s main sponsor, Tony Rucinski, the Assistant Director of IT at Cardiff University, believed that Citrix MetaFrame could provide the answer.

Connecting to the NHS

Cardiff University links into the Joint Academic Network (Janet), a relatively unregulated network. NHS Wales has a managed private network (DAWN2) which is a BT Metro VPN linking district general hospitals and other major NHS sites together to make HOWIS. NHS sites are linked via Firewalls and a managed network as Health Solution Wales (HSW), government funded via the National assembly for Wales. HSW is highly regulated and secure, due to the storage of patient records, and the delivery of clinical systems and patient appointments.

In May of 2003 a paper was presented to the Board of the NHS Information Authority with a proposal to establish a permanent 100MB link between the Welsh NHS network and the College with a view to delivering a secure Citrix based solution right into the heart of the 20+ District General Hospitals throughout the country.

The Board gave authorisation to proceed with this project, linking the two networks via a 100MB link to provide a Citrix based service. This is the first time within the UK that permission has been granted for such a large scale activity. The College and NHS Board recognised that the project has a potential major impact on the delivery of healthcare education.

Adding the Wireless Dimension

The chosen methodology for wireless connection was to install over one hundred 802.11b compliant wireless access points around the local campus – creating one of the largest wireless installations in Europe. The combined problems of security and bandwidth were to be dealt with by routing these devices over a VLAN and connecting to the campus network via Citrix’s Secure Gateway software. This would allow for both a wide level of affordable client device compatibility as well as a high level of security and authentication through 128 bit encryption technologies.

Selecting the Delivery Partner

The decision was taken to go out to tender for a Citrix solution, and from the responses select a strategic delivery partner capable of providing a solution which would meet the full spectrum of the college’s access requirements.

A solutions requirement document was drawn up which included reviewing the existing infrastructure, and designing a new Citrix MetaFrame Server Farm. Of critical importance to the customer was Citrix Web Interface and Secure Gateway delivery of applications, and integration with the Novell® directory authentication and Novell ZENworks® integration used at the college.

Tony Rucinski took the lead in reviewing prospective suppliers and bids, and selected Centralis, a Citrix Managed Consulting Provider, as the supplier best able to work with all the board members to deliver the complex, strategic requirements of the project.

	Citrix Access Solutions have enabled us to deliver a project of notable success that will benefit the health of an entire nation
	Tony Rucinski, Deputy IT Director, Cardiff University

Proving & Refining The Solution

Almost a year into the project, much has been achieved. The pilot phase was been completed, following four months of running in test mode, and the production build deployed to live users. Connectivity to the NHS network is installed and proven, and the security approved by the NHS Board.

One area of the project brought Centralis added-value strengths to the fore. NHS sites have different, and much more stringent access restrictions from College sites. Essentially the customer needed to be able to deliver different application access to users, depending on which location they were logging in from.

Centralis developed an add-on to Citrix Web Interface which allows the system administrator to change the applications presented to the user based on the IP address range which they are connecting from. This allowed the customer to seamlessly present a full application suite to users within the campus address range, and a restricted one when offsite.

Tony Rucinski comments "When engaging with Centralis, we expected competence in specific areas because that's why they had been recommended to us - and that's what the contract promised! What we didn't expect however was the level to which the consultant assigned took it upon himself to own issues and deliver resolutions in associated areas that would have a major impact on deliverables. This emphasis on providing a solution as opposed to a set of completed tasks has been a major "plus" in our experiences to date."

Benefits to the Customer

The project has enabled the customer to deliver their strategic commitment of equality of access to all – regardless of location, device or connection.

This will directly improve the access provided to students and staff in two key areas, through the provision of wireless access across the campus, and by providing improved facilities for the staff undertaking research and training work on NHS sites.

Conclusions

The project was awarded the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association National Award for Excellence 2004, for its breadth of access provision, and for the ground breaking progress in delivering collaboration with the NHS. The project manager has also been invited to present a paper on the project at the 10th International Conference of European University Information Systems in Slovenia in July.

Most importantly though, the project has the potential to offer real benefits both to the end-users, and the patients they treat. In the words of Tony Rucinski, "Citrix Access Solutions have enabled us to deliver a project of notable success that will benefit the health of an entire nation in terms of the collaborative research and teaching enhancements that it will provide."

∆ Top of page