Altru Health System Uses SonicWALL Next-Generation Firewalls to Drive Efficiencies, Secure Patient Data

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SonicWALL, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent network security and data protection solutions, today announced that Altru Health System®, a community-owned and integrated healthcare system of 3,800 employees and nearly 200 physicians, successfully deployed two SonicWALL® E-Class NSA E6500 and two NSA E5500 Next-Generation Firewalls in High Availability mode, as well as TZ Series firewalls to better secure its 20 office locations across North Dakota and Minnesota. Altru currently also implements the SonicWALL Aventail® SRA EX7000 appliance to enable secure remote access for its users. Altru is comprised of an acute care hospital, a rehabilitation hospital, a large home care network, a congregate living facility and over a dozen outpatient clinics.

Following a recent upgrade of its electronic medical records (EMR) application, Altru's staff needed to manage additional infrastructure with an already constrained IT budget. In addition, the healthcare organization experienced increased demand from physicians and healthcare providers who required office and mobile access to a myriad of different types of clinical information and applications. As a result, Altru encountered a spike in the number of devices accessing its network.

"The movement to EMR drives a need for us to provide access to many different types of information, from many different places," said Matt Schumacher, manager of technical support at Altru Health System.

In parallel, Altru was challenged with network latency and required more performance in order to fully enable all security services. Previously, Altru had used Fortinet® FortiGate firewalls at its Internet gateways and managed separate secure remote access solutions for web-based and desktop resources. With the switch to EMR, Schumacher wanted a comprehensive replacement to provide Altru's remote staff and physicians with secure and compliant access to patient information throughout its wide area network.

Schumacher continued: "We really wanted to simplify management and consolidate different types of remote access products into one platform. SonicWALL is a lot easier to configure than Fortinet and any of the other products we considered."

Altru engaged the assistance and counsel of High Point Networks in the evaluation and selection of the solution. They deployed E-Class NSA E6500 and E5500 Next-Generation Firewalls in combination with the Aventail SRA EX7000. This created a SonicWALL Clean VPN™ that delivers the critical dual protection necessary to secure both VPN access and traffic. Altru's remote and mobile physicians as well as its staff now benefit from secure and HIPAA compliant access to patient information throughout its wide area network.

As a result, Altru has become more successful because they have optimized the delivery of clinical information and applications to their remote branches and home users. This saves time and makes care for patients more effective. It also enables critical business initiatives such as the EMR upgrade and its migration to Voice over IP (VoIP). In addition, the healthcare system is currently converting its PBX telephone systems to VoIP as well as incorporating videoconferencing to support telemedicine initiatives for outpatients and remote clinics.

The SonicWALL E-Class NSA E6500 and E5500 Next-Generation Firewalls provide Altru with breakthrough multi-core performance, Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection™, intrusion prevention, application control and anti-malware. This is complemented with SonicWALL TZ Series firewalls at each remote location to establish security and connectivity at the highest speeds available from its ISPs.

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About Altru Health System

Altru Health System is a community-owned, integrated system with an acute care hospital, a rehabilitation hospital, more than a dozen clinics in Grand Forks and the region, a large home care network, and a congregate living facility. It employs nearly 200 physicians and 3,800 staff.  For more information, visit www.altru.org.

About SonicWALL, Inc.

Guided by its vision of Dynamic Security for the Global Network, SonicWALL develops advanced intelligent network security and data protection solutions that adapt as organizations evolve and as threats evolve. Trusted by small and large enterprises worldwide, SonicWALL solutions are designed to detect and control applications and protect networks from intrusions and malware attacks through award-winning hardware, software and virtual appliance-based solutions. For more information, visit http://www.sonicwall.com/.

Copyright © 2011 SonicWALL, Inc. All rights reserved. SonicWALL® is a registered trademark of SonicWALL, Inc. and all other SonicWALL product and service names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of SonicWALL, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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SOURCE SonicWALL, Inc.