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“Australians seek security from their health care
and we were seeking security for their health information.
Macquarie Hosting, with its proven experience working with
online businesses and Government departments, gave us the
confidence we needed to scale easily to support future expansion
of the service.”
Craig Bosworth
Healthways’
Director of Strategy
Overview:
Healthways Australia Pty Ltd is part of Healthways Inc,
a leading international provider of population health support
services including wellness, prevention and chronic disease
management services.
The company launched in Australia in November 2008 announcing
a partnership with Australia’s third largest health insurer
HCF as its first local deal.
Under the partnership, Healthways would provide the platform
and content for HCF customers to access an internet-based
suit of health and wellness resources designed to help them
measure their current health, assess risks and prevent future
health problems.
The HCF partnership with Healthways represented an investment
of more than $100 million over five years for the insurer
and came with an understandable expectation that the service
and all associated health records would be one hundred percent
secure and available for customers twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week.
The Opportunity:
“The launch of these services marks a significant investment
for our private health insurance partner HCF, and a landmark
for the Australian health system. We therefore needed to
partner with a provider that could guarantee us the secure
and reliable back-end required to support it,” said Craig
Bosworth, Healthways’ Director of Strategy.
“Australians seek security from their health care and
we were seeking security for their health information. Macquarie
Hosting, with its proven experience working with online
businesses and Government departments, gave us the confidence
we needed to scale easily to support future expansion of
the service.”
Healthways chose to partner with Macquarie Hosting to
meet its needs based on its proven experience working with
one hundred per cent online companies and in providing 24/7,
secure availability of mission critical applications.
Macquarie Hosting also demonstrated significant experience
in providing hosting and data services for some of Australia’s
leading health organisations including the National E-Health
Transition Authority (NEHTA), Smart Health, OZDoc’s Online
and Catholic Health Care.
The Solution:
Macquarie Hosting designed a high-availability, fully-managed
hosting solution built on multiple dedicated servers for
Healthways.
The solution was optimised for rapid scalability and
increased bandwidth and featured redundant SSL load-balancing
which allows Macquarie Hosting to manage peaks in traffic
to the Healthways’ online resource while dedicated firewalls
provide added security and redundancy.
All online resources and mission critical applications
including customised health information, health risk assessments,
health coaching and on-line personal health records are
hosted on Macquarie Hosting servers in its ISO 27001 certified
and PCI compliant data centre in Sydney, the Intellicentre.
Macquarie Hosting also provides a dedicated tape back-up
library and tape drives as well as high availability core
network and redundant data links to ensure 24/7 availability
of the service for Healthways Australia subscribers and
HCF members.
The Macquarie Hosting deal also includes all data and
voice services for Healthways Australia’s Care Enhancement
Centre located in North Ryde. This provides the organisation
with a single SLA and guaranteed service level for its network,
communications and hosting requirements.
The Results:
“Australia has one of the best healthcare systems in
the world. However if we are to continue improving the system
and better manage the tsunami of chronic diseases coming
through, then broad access to personal quality online health
resources and large scale telephonic support are critical,”
Mr Bosworth said.
“The Government recognises this and the eHealth sector
is set to boom over the next 12 to 18 months as more and
more investment is made in overhauling and improving the
system.
“We are confident the platform Macquarie Hosting has
provided us will scale effectively to cope with whatever
opportunity or demand that overhaul may bring. In the immediate
term, they keep it simple for us. Our system is always available
when we need it and we know it’s secure.”
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