NHS Bromley gets ‘Zen’ control

NHS Bromley has taken remote control of more than 800 PCs in its GP practices, using an IT solution from Novell.

The software and services giant has announced that the primary care trust is using its ZENworks Configuration Management solution to remotely manage the IT at GP surgeries.

Novell said the solution had reduced the roll-out time for new software updates and fixes from three months to one week.

Paul Stebles, GP service delivery manager at NHS Bromley, said that before the Novell solution was deployed the PCT’s IT team had to travel to each surgery to fix problems or install updates to PCs and servers.

“This was extremely laborious, even a simple update could take up to three months to deploy,” he added.

Novell said its solution gives the trust’s IT team a real time view of all the PCs on the network, making it easy to see the hardware configuration on each machine and the software it was running.

Stebles added: “As a new customer to ZENworks the immediate appeal of Novell was that it could give us a comprehensive range of IT management functionalities in one single solution.”

Stebles said the time savings generated by use of the system meant the IT team was now able to select and test each security update before deciding whether to roll it out.

He added: “This gives us more control over the infrastructure and helps keep confidential patient data safe. Ultimately more secure and reliable IT infrastructure will enable us to deliver a better service to the doctors and citizens of Bromley.”