Entrust Customers

Catholic Healthcare West chooses Entrust to increase security for Nortel Contivity VPN.

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It seems inevitable that Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) would turn to Nortel Networks to provide easy but secure remote access to the organization's information network. In fact, the not-for-profit health care system's vision statement practically demands it: "Our focus is on healing and health improvement through services and technologies that are accessible, coordinated, efficient and delivered with compassion."

With that focus firmly fixed before their collective mind's eye, officials at CHW's central offices in San Francisco were determined to render the information network for CHW's hospital system accessible to any of its nearly 9,000 active medical staff members and other authorized personnel — whether or not they are actually on site. But the task was easier said than done, with 48 acute care hospitals spread throughout California, Arizona and Nevada. How might it be possible to provide remote access over a universally available public network like the Internet, yet at the same time guard against any breaches of information security? CHW found the answer in Nortel Networks' Contivity* VPN (virtual private network) Switches.

"We need more than just a browser..."
"We were looking for something more than a mere browser to access a secure website through an SSL (secure socket layer) connection, for example," says Gary Mattson, CHW's expert in enterprise network management, security and encryption. "A secure browser limits you on what you can do. But coming in on a VPN connection like Nortel Networks' actually permits all access, to the resources you would have, if you were at your office desk connected to our network."

With so many thousands of potential users, Mattson and colleague Scot Roseland, CHW's enterprise engineer, also knew that ease of installation at the sites of remote clients would be of primary importance. "You cannot build a VPN with just a terminal and a network connection," Mattson observes. "We needed to enable remote users to access the CHW information network. In other words, when users connect to whatever the solution might be, they will each need to have an IP address that resides within the CHW private network so as not be restricted from resourses they are authorized to use."

The answer: Contivity VPN Switches from Nortel Networks
Mattson and Roseland concluded that the best VPN solution for Catholic Healthcare West would need to meet the following key criteria:

  • Strong authentication functionality to ensure information security
  • Ease of installation at client sites
  • Customization capability
  • Simple implementation
  • Easy maintenance
  • Backup for continuous service through technical difficulties

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