Utilising ICT to deliver a world class healthcare facility
With technology playing a central role in the Healthcare sector, Blackrock Clinic was eager to fully utilise its ICT capability to deliver advanced diagnosis and treatment as well as upholding its high standards of service.

Blackrock Clinic engaged eircom’s Advisory Services to ensure that its investment in ICT underpinned it’s position as one of Irelands most successful  private healthcare facilities. As a result, the clinic now boasts a world-class infrastructure, that is also robust enough to deploy future diagnostic and treatment solutions, such as imaging and telemedicine,

Founded in 1984, Blackrock Clinic in Dublin is one of Ireland’s most prestigious and successful private healthcare facilities and has seen tremendous growth in recent years. The Clinic’s committment to delivering the best in healthcare practice to its medical consultants, general practitioners and their patients, is underpinned by both the deployment of advanced diagnosis and treatment capabilities and an ambitious programme to enhance its physical environment.

Blackrock Clinic IT department engaged eircom Advisory Services, to review the direction of its technology infrastructure, specifically to;

1. facilitate a framework for short-term technology decision-making to address the clinic’s immediate demands.
2. establish a platform to enable ongoing expansion plans
3. introduce emerging and evolving healthcare ICT solutions into the future.

Working closely with the Head of IT at Blackrock Clinic, the eircom Advisory Services team initially analysed the current state of the clinic’s ICT infrastructure. The aim was to ensure that, as the clinic evolved, the desired change would not be hindered, and opportunities to provide high-tech healthcare services such as telemedicine would be straightforward.

“By leveraging the infrastructure that Blackrock Clinic already had, and by identifying new solutions, we believe that the team in Blackrock Clinic have a great platform with which to continue their successful growth,” explains Clive Ryan, Director, eircom Advisory Services.

The healthcare sector is already introducing technology–based services as paperless systems, where patients can be assessed and diagnosed remotely using imaging technology and other high-tech systems. eircom Advisory Services team’s remit was to ensure that the clinic’s infrastructure was future-proofed and robust enough to roll out these new technologies.

The ETIS addressed a number of questions such as –

• - how should change be executed and achieved?
• - what should logical transition states for the project be?
• - how might the future changes impact on business technology governance at the clinic?

This included examining the needs of the patients and medical professionals that utilise the services of the clinic, as well as the staff based at the clinic.

The scope of the project spanned the entire application portfolio, underlying hardware and network infrastructure. eircom worked with key staff to develop a;-

1. “target environment” which defines the future operating structures, processes, systems, infrastructure and policies of the clinic,
2.  “route map”, which defines the stages of work the clinic needs to undertake in
3. order to move from the existing environment to the target environment.

“The ETIS output, recommendations and conclusions gave the clinic a business context as to why we need to invest in the infrastructure,” explains John Hayes, Head of IT, Blackrock Clinic. “This provided a necessary framework guiding how our ICT infrastructure should evolve, which will enable us to embrace future developments. It also helped us to communicate with, and get the critical buy-in of senior business management within the clinic. We selected eircom Advisory Services to work with us on this foundation project for their business orientated approach to ICT planning.”

To find out how eircom Advisory Services can benefit your business, please contact your eircom account manager.

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