OVERVIEW

With 215 establishments benefiting from their services, the Health Cooperation Group (GCS) Télésante Lorraine, was chosen by the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Grand Est to develop e-health in the region. Télésante Lorraine manages the coordination and sharing of eHealth Information Systems (IS) with its members. They provide in-depth services including: course services, telemedicine and medical imaging, secure health messaging, webconferencing, counseling and support on shared IS, especially with change management regarding securing health data.

A special partnership with IDO-in, French leader in e-health

To support it in its e-health services and in the development of secure business solutions for their datacenter, Télésanté Lorraine benefits from the advice of the IDO-in group, a publisher and integrator of specialized solutions in the production of care, exchange and sharing of health data, telemedicine, remote surveillance and case management. For over 10 years, these dedicated solutions allowed for the digitization of the patient journey, from in-hospital care to community medicine, through the processes of prevention, identification and coordination for complex pathologies.

CHALLENGES

The security of health data, an issue of digital transformation As health systems across the world are targeted by unprecedented cyber-attacks, data security is a critical issue in eHealth today.

“We are providing messaging to member institutions in the Lorraine region, but the open source anti-spam solution that was introduced a few years ago no longer met our needs for performance, threat detection, and exploitation.” Says Alex Di Fabio, Télésanté Project Manager and Service Center Manager, GCS Télésanté Lorraine.

The messaging faced recurring attacks that required Télésanté to quickly strengthen the users’ protection. With the development of new ransomware-type threats, the open source security solution encountered filtering difficulties that created challenges in terms of responsiveness and administration.

“Faced with an increase of spam, we experienced a large increase of bandwidth consumption along with a lack of flexibility with the administration, and difficulties with updates; our members had the choice to keep their current messaging in place or outsource it to Télésanté Lorraine”, continues Alex Di Fabio.

The increase in the messaging system and the complexity of the infrastructure with the addition of new servers, prompted the group to search for a new security solution. They required a solution suitable for the evolving healthcare sector, offering strong protection against spam and phishing attempts, while allowing administrative delegation at each member institution.

“Our desire was to reduce human resources for internal teams and local referrals in institutions and technical expenses (bandwidth, server load) while facilitating administration for members in an approach that was more preventative than curative”, confirms Alex Di Fabio.

WHY TREND

Télésanté Lorraine turned to IDO-in partner who, after analyzing the existing solution, directed them to Trend Micro™ Hosted Email Security solution. Hosted Email Security is a solution that provides continuously updated protection against phishing attacks, advanced targeted attacks, spam and malware before they reach the network.

A proof of concept (POC), conducted by IDO-in, Trend Micro, Télésanté Lorraine and the Emile Durkheim Hospital Center in Epinal, determined the required functionalities, the level of performance to be achieved, and tested the solution on site. The test proved conclusive, the deployment of the solution was gradually launched, and now secures 17,000 BAL and 600,000 messages per month.

RESULTS

“We were very pleased with the quick deployment of Hosted Email Security, despite the different configurations of our members. The solution also simplifies the administration thanks to the flexibility of the strategies”, explains Alex Di Fabio. “Spam and malicious emails have been stopped upstream and drastically. In addition, Trend Micro’s proposed usage model allows for fair billing, another very positive point for us.”

WHAT'S NEXT

A unified offer of e-health projects in the Greater East region. As part of the states’ reform of territorial administration, the GCS of the 3 former regions of Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine, are moving towards a single operational project management of e-health projects for the Greater East region. The Trend Micro solution helps prepare for the future and anticipate increases in load and volume. “The responsive support associated with IDO-In’s technical and business vision, as well as Trend Micro’s technological progress, enabled us to meet our challenges both in terms of costs and in terms of responsiveness to new threats.”, concludes Alex DI FABIO.

Télésanté Lorraine’s goal: foster an efficient culture of cybersecurity by continuing to educate its members, in collaboration with IDO-In.