Baptist Health 

Key to this initiative was modernizing the company’s virtual desktop environment, which clinicians use day in and day out to access patient data in real time, share test results, and collaborate on treatment plans. They needed a solution that could deploy any application, anywhere, to any device while maintaining the highest levels of performance, availability, and data protection.

Baptist Health Principal Technical Architect, LeRoy Vanek, partnered with Microsoft Azure and NetApp to pioneer a new reference architecture for VMware Horizon on Azure NetApp Files.

Says Vanek, “I was able to work with all three parties, to take a reference architecture from VMware, leverage a new tool, which was Azure NetApp Files, and get the solution validated and supported in less than 30 days. And if it weren’t for that relationship, that wouldn't be possible.”

With the new solution in place, medical staff can now access desktops and applications from any device, anywhere without compromising data security or compliance. Real-time access to patient data enables faster, more-informed decision-making, leading to more timely and accurate diagnosis and treatment.

The new solution also benefits from the massive on-demand scalability of the Azure platform, enabling the company to quickly adapt to changing workload requirements. In the event of a disaster, real-time data replication enables rapid recovery and business continuity, and provides the highest-possible uptime for this critical workload.

“For a health care provider, virtual desktop infrastructure is one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure that you have. It is the desktop that a provider uses to treat patients. So, you want disaster recovery, but the traditional costs of DR outside of the cloud are very high. By leveraging Azure NetApp files and the cost savings that I get from that, I can provide that same level of DR at a much lower operational cost,” says Vanek.