Information Technology Services

The recently completed Health Sciences Education Building has wireless access throughout and is one of the first buildings to implement Perfigo wireless technology. The new system provides seamless wireless connectivity for users as they walk from one building to the next within the HSC campus. 

Due in part to the efforts and talents of many individuals in ITS, the World Class U Behavior Standards rollout proved to be a success.  More than 3,000 employees were trained on the new Hospitals and Clinics Behavioral Standards using a multi-media presentation created and designed by ITS staff.

Through rounding at the Hospitals and Clinics, observing users and asking about their likes and dislikes with system features, we have made systems more usable, reduced login time without compromising security, and improved application delivery speed to outlying clinics.

Over 100 new interfaces were developed to communicate data among our systems. The interfaces were built in support of the Supply Chain Initiative, HIPAA transactions and implementation of new systems. An interface engine was implemented to accommodate the growth of these interfacing needs now and in the future.

Tremendous growth in the needs of data storage required a move to a virtualized storage area network architecture and a new solution for providing backups. The new environment provides a level of redundancy and reliability that ensures the highest level of availability of our data assets.

More thoughtful staffing of the Help Desk as well as improved training and better availability of reference tools has led to a significant improvement in services provided by Help Desk agents. The ability to process calls more efficiently has steadily improved. Close to 80 percent of the calls are answered immediately with no wait-time for the customer. The average wait time for calls that do get placed on hold has decreased from 5 minutes to 1 1/2 — 2 minutes.

For the past several months, HSC has been using a new application delivery tool that has made the Citrix Metaframe environment more stable. The product is called Softricity. Softricity isolates applications and allows them to co-exist with other applications. As a result, time-consuming testing is no longer required. During the 2005-06 fiscal year, Softricity will be installed on PCs throughout Health Sciences and will become the application delivery method of choice.

With the new automated configuration management software, Altiris, the rollout of new PCs as well as upgrades has been made easier. Deployment of 100 machines at the UUOC took a single day, instead of the week that it would have taken to do the same job in the past. In addition to new installs, the tool assists with printer installation, application de-ployment, and patch management.

The Customer Toolkit for Construction Projects has aided several areas with a smooth transition of IT services to their new facilities. Current standards, practices and processes are outlined in the toolkit, which helps saves time in planning a successful infrastructure.