Logicalis takes Peninsula Health to the cloud

Frankston Hospital

IT services provider Logicalis Australia has provided healthcare provider Peninsula Health with infrastructure to support remote working and telehealth services to ensure continuity during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Peninsula Health is based in metropolitan and rural areas within Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, providing services at seven locations and staffing 1,000 employees. 

The infrastructure, which utilises Citrix Cloud on Microsoft Azure, allowed for Peninsula Health to deploy secure digital workspaces while also providing a place for sensitive applications, desktop and data resources to be stored in the cloud. 

The project took place in March 2020 as the healthcare did not have the systems required to support the uplift in remote working, with it using a traditional on-premises system at the time. 

There was a need to expedite the implementation as well, with the lockdowns countries were facing around the world indicating that, at the time, such a situation could take place in Australia. 

“We didn’t have the luxury of sitting down and thinking, ‘What should we do?” said Sam Psathas, engagement manager at Logicalis. “We had to move fast.” 

And move fast they did, as the system went live with users in a three-week period. 

After establishing the infrastructure for remote working, the next focus for the healthcare provider was on bolstering its telehealth services. 

“It became a very immediate question of how we could get technology that would allow us to safely and securely interact with patients,” said Alison Watts, operations director at Peninsula Health. 

Logicalis provided another Citrix solution to enable virtual consultations, which it implemented and was ready to use with end users within two weeks. 

“The feedback from our clinical staff has been that telehealth and virtual solutions can deliver as good and, in some cases, even better services for patients than a face-to-face consultation,” Watts added.  

The announcement of Logicalis’ involvement with Peninsula Health comes several weeks after the IT services provider appointed Ex-Bulletproof chief Anthony Woodward to lead the business, replacing the now-global chief operating officer Michael Chanter.