Client story Managed Cloud Platform Enables Topaz to Deliver Greater Quality of Life for its Clients
By Insight UK / 1 Oct 2020
By Insight UK / 1 Oct 2020
Topaz is a regional healthcare organisation specialising in elderly care in the Netherlands. More than 1,700 healthcare professionals and 1,000 volunteers work at Topaz. Together, they serve 1,400 clients.
For many healthcare organisations, the pressure on employees is high. Increasingly strict legislation and regulations, rising demand for care due to an ageing population and a lack of qualified personnel all add to this burden. To ensure the quality of healthcare provided remains high, streamlining processes, reducing administrative pressure and applying innovation is essential.
Topaz had been using an IT infrastructure from a private cloud, but increasingly found itself facing limitations. Edwin Kalbfleisch, Member of the Executive Board of Topaz, explained: “With the arrival of GDPR and increasing cyber crime, we had a test performed on the old environment. It turned out that our environment no longer met the requirements we set.”
Topaz also wanted to innovate its healthcare to ensure the highest possible quality of life for its clients, based on the vision ‘The whole life counts.’ This requirement meant that Topaz had to find a new platform that could offer its IT to users, clients and collaboration partners.
““Using this new IT platform means that our staff have more time to spend on what is really important: optimally serving our residents and clients to make their quality of life as good as possible.””
Edwin Kalbfleisch Member of the Executive Board of Topaz
To determine what was expected of the platform, it was important for Insight to understand Topaz’s future strategy. The team at Insight initiated an inspiration session to understand what Topaz’s Workplace 2.0 could look like. The inspiration session focused on the experience and helped to determine the basis of the journey to the cloud. Key representatives from both organisations were involved to help plan a course of action and identify success factors based on the intended final goal.
A significant part in determining the success of this solution was how it was managed. Topaz could often be quite indecisive with their planning and needed the support of a partner to help determine the best course of action. Edwin Kalbfleisch explained, “We thought it was important to clearly map the route from start to finish, starting with an IT architecture that fits Topaz’s vision, so everyone involved knows exactly what is expected of them at any time during the journey. We engaged the specialist ITsPeople to implement programme management, and together with Insight, proved a great success.”
Topaz chose Microsoft Azure as the platform from which to base its IT infrastructure and not without reason. There are various ready-to-use solutions and interfaces within Microsoft Azure that enable home automation solutions and futureproofing (including AI). Tom Hulscher stated: “With Azure, Topaz has laid the foundations, including security, design and management, and is now fully ready for future innovation. At Insight our Digital Innovation team can support Topaz in designing, constructing and setting up modern healthcare solutions that benefit the future care of its clients.”
The new cloud workstation based on Microsoft Windows 10 offers Topaz employees and volunteers many benefits. Through the ‘single sign on’ principle, employees no longer have to search for usernames and passwords for various applications. Ease of use has also ensured greater security. With the integration of various care-specific software programs within the new cloud workstation, employees spend much less time switching between applications and searching for information.
One of the main reasons Topaz selected Insight as its partner of choice was its extensive adoption programme. Tom Hulscher explained: “Our specialist adoption programme runs from the very first design sketches to far beyond completion.” According to Tom, adoption itself is a source of innovation: “As soon as users get to know a platform and know what the technology can do for them, they often come up with new ideas. Ideas for designing processes better, improving communication, or bringing solutions to the customer faster.”
One of the most important things that has emerged during projects – and their adoption – is the skills of IT personnel. They no longer need to maintain an environment and can focus more time on performing the management function. Similarly, IT specialists now have time to focus on IT innovation to modernise the healthcare function.
Topaz and Insight have started a journey to the cloud together. Both the IT infrastructure and the new modern workstation are being used to their satisfaction. The programme includes intelligent home automation and utilising the data held by Topaz. Edwin Kalbfleisch states “We’re only at the start of the journey. Our ultimate goal is to safeguard our clients’ quality of life as much as possible. We are a healthcare organisation. Providing the best possible care is what we love doing, and we are pleased to have found a partner in Insight who understands that. A partner who supports us exceptionally well with clever ideas and innovative cloud technology, so that we can concentrate on our people.”
“With Azure, Topaz has laid the foundations, including security, design and management, and is now fully ready for future innovation. At Insight we have a Digital Innovation team that can support Topaz in designing, constructing and setting up modern healthcare solutions.”
Tom Hulscher Senior Solution Sales Manager, Insight
Topaz wanted to reduce the administrative pressure on its healthcare professionals, streamline processes and ensure a high quality of care through applying innovation.
As the old IT environment no longer met company requirements, Topaz wanted to look for a new IT platform. Through an Insight inspiration session, the route was mapped out to an innovative digital cloud workspace on Microsoft Azure and Windows 10.
Thanks to collaboration with Insight, the foundation was set to ensure Topaz could continue to provide the relevant care to its clients, and constantly evolve and innovate its healthcare solutions.
