CUSTOMER STORY
Tremendous growth calls for reliable IT solutions
SmartDeploy simplifies daily PC management for multiple locations and allows CHAS Health to continue expanding access to quality health care.
Growth and expansion have been the constant story for CHAS Health over the past 25 years. In 1994, CHAS Health began as a single clinic with two exam rooms in Spokane, WA, created to serve patients who did not have health insurance. It has grown to an 18-location non-profit organization spanning Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. Today, CHAS Health provides medical, dental, pharmacy, and behavioral health services to nearly 100,000 patients throughout Spokane County and the Lewis-Clark Valley every year. This kind of growth comes with challenges, and the CHAS Health IT team knows this firsthand.
“Without SmartDeploy, you would need to disable the encryption, update all the drivers, and then make sure it’s all reenabled. You’d do that all manually. But SmartDeploy just does it on it’s own.”
-Eddie Tuell, Systems Engineer at CHAS Health
Two many drivers, not enough time
CHAS Health’s desktop support team manages all of the organization’s PCs for providers, administrative staff, and more. The team is constantly searching for ways to more efficiently deploy and manage computers as the organization consistently adds new clinics and exam rooms. As with most organizations, rapid expansion led to growing pains within the IT department, as old processes could no longer support the larger set of end users. For example, the IT department had to manually download drivers for more than 20 Dell computer models. Managing and updating the device drivers required valuable IT time and ultimately led to “multiple blue screen problems,” explains Eddie Tuell, system engineer for CHAS Health. He set out to find a better driver management strategy that would
eliminate the driver headaches, improve endpoint reliability, and increase the team’s productivity. He began researching desktop management solutions on
online forums and found SmartDeploy.
Tuell signed up for a SmartDeploy trial. “We deployed a Windows image to 15 computers without any issues,” he says. “The blue screen issues were long
gone thanks to the Platform Packs that the driver experts at SmartDeploy update and test.” With the driver legwork handled, Tuell and his team were ready
to move forward with purchasing SmartDeploy. The value of SmartDeploy compared to its annual cost made the justification of a purchase make sense.
SmartDeploy improves PC management & security
Since CHAS Health purchased SmartDeploy, the Platform Packs continue to increase the productivity of the desktop management team. The team no longer has to find specific drivers for multiple Dell PC models, nor does it need to
manage a library of model-specific images. The team relies on the Platform Pack library to have the drivers it needs and manages only a single golden image containing Windows 10 and the electronic medical records software that
every user needs. After the team pushes the image, it uses SmartDeploy’s Application Deployment feature to deploy department-specific applications, such as Microsoft Office, Google Chrome, and medical billing software. Because
SmartDeploy provides more than 1,500 Platform Packs, and their patented driver injection technology reduces errors in driver selection at deployment time. Without having to troubleshoot those errors and having to manage only a
single golden image for all PCs, Tuell’s team can focus more on the strategic IT projects that come with managing Windows 10 in multiple locations within an organization that’s growing at a rapid rate.
Driver management aside, SmartDeploy has surprised the team with unexpected bonuses in managing Windows 10, such as the ability to update the BIOS remotely. Tuell is excited about this capability, as “there hasn’t been a good tool I’ve found to manage any drivers or BIOS remotely, and you can just do it with SmartDeploy.”
Security through bitlocker automation
To protect data, CHAS Health enables BitLocker on all endpoints – a step they’ve configured SmartDeploy to handle automatically as part of reimaging. When pushing driver updates, Tuell explains that “without SmartDeploy, you would
need to disable the encryption, update all the drivers, and then make sure it’s all reenabled. You’d do that manually. But SmartDeploy just does it on its own.” Although this is a minor feature, it eliminates the chance of human error that could ultimately save the organization from a security breach.
Rapid growth coupled with the challenge of meeting HIPAA requirements and protecting patient records require the CHAS Health IT department to carefully select solutions that are secure and reliable. SmartDeploy has not only met
but exceeded CHAS Health’s expectations for a computer management solution that it uses daily.
Consistently Awarded as “High Performer” on G2
Awarded for having the highest customer satisfaction among our competitors
Recognized as a Leader in IT Management
Awarded for consistently receiving positive reviews from our customers
Want to hear more from our customers? Check out our reviews.
ADDITIONAL CASE STUDIES
Large health system migrates 2,600+ devices across 23 locations to Win10, responds quickly to COVID-19 demands.
Menasha Joint School District
increases IT reliability by
switching from Microsoft SCCM
to SmartDeploy.
New York investment firm uses SmartDeploy to effectively manage and secure a remote endpoint environment.
Commercial construction group manages 180 devices across multiple field locations and reduces provisioning time by 75%.
Managed Service Provider (MSP), HEROIC, deployed more than 400 computers in 42 hours with SmartDeploy