Rubrik Gives Southern Nevada Health District Peace of Mind

The Southern Nevada Health District is the local public health agency for Las Vegas and Clark County, Nevada. In addition to providing primary care and clinical services, the agency is responsible for regulating EMTs and ambulances, inspecting hotels and restaurants, operating mosquito and vector control programs, maintaining vital records, and conducting education programs for the area. With more than 42 million visitors
to Las Vegas every year, SNHD’s attention to health extends beyond the region’s 2.2 million residents, almost three-quarters of the entire state of Nevada.

“Data is critical in order to effectively serve the wellbeing of our county citizens,” said Jason Frame, Chief Information Officer. He oversees a team of 23 people whose mission is to provide the best possible customer service within the agency and the public. “We have access to all kinds of citizen data, such as health clinic records, permits, and personally identifiable information (PII) that must be protected. That’s why we chose Rubrik as our data management solution – Rubrik gives me peace of mind, knowing that our data is safe. Furthermore, Polaris allows us to do more with our data combating ransomware and implementing stronger data governance processes,
helping us be better stewards for our citizens.”

INCREASING CONFIDENCE IN COMPLIANCE THROUGH PROTECTION AND IMMUTABILITY AGAINST RANSOMWARE
Being prepared is of the utmost priority for SNHD. “Recognizing the critical importance of data in healthcare, it is vital that we ensure protection and availability. Should the agency lose access to data, the negative impact on patients and staff would be substantial. In addition, we know that any healthcare organization is high on the target list for ransomware,” said Frame. “To put this in perspective, a single violation of HIPAA
could cost us an up to $1.5 million, not accounting for the damage to our reputation among patients, partners, and the public. This is why we set out to rethink our data protection strategy.”

Prior to Rubrik, SNHD’s legacy backup system was unreliable and labor-intensive, requiring one team member to be devoted to managing backups. And even then, the amount of time and manual management to ensure backups was unacceptable. The tipping point was when the agency’s Microsoft Exchange server crashed in the process of being backed up, causing the entire system to crash and leaving the agency without access to email for more than 10 hours and some users for multiple days.

“At that point, I thought there has to be a better way,” said Frame. “We evaluated several vendors, but Rubrik clearly stood out. Their technology and ease of use were superior, and the fact that they offer seamless migration to cloud was very appealing because we didn’t have a second data center. Even throughout the POC process, it was so much easier than the other solutions – just a couple of clicks
and we were up and running. Furthermore, we rely on Palo Alto Networks for cybersecurity. So coupling their technology with Rubrik, we feel very confident in our end-to-end data protection. Not to mention, Rubrik’s immutability was the icing on the cake.”

QUEST FOR INNOVATION IN MIDST OF GLOBAL PANDEMIC
With the COVID-19 pandemic radically altering daily life, Frame’s IT team had to quickly adapt to the changing climate. “We had
to put in place the systems, applications, and procedures that allowed our staff to work from home. We also started doing telemedicine on a large scale, making it possible for patients to talk to their doctors remotely,” said Frame. His team also quickly developed and rolled out several mobile and web apps to track the spread of the virus across the county, alert the public, and aid in contact tracing. “As devastating as the pandemic has been, it has made crystal clear to everyone how much IT impacts them, and the value of being prepared for any disaster.”

• 250 days per year of additional productivity: “Previously, we had a team member spending most of his time managing backups. With Rubrik, that’s been reduced to virtually nothing, resulting in over 250 days per year of added productivity. We have countless projects that we’re working on, so any time we can give back to our team is invaluable.”

90%+ faster restores: “We had our first server crash a year ago, and we were able to get it restored in less than three minutes. Previously, it would have been a half day at a minimum.”

Stronger ransomware security: “It’s important to the health of our patients that if we ever have an attack, we can quickly and easily get back up and running with Rubrik. 

For more information and to see the complete case study please goto https://www.rubrik.com/en/customers/southern-nevada-health-district

For questions, comments or inquiries into Rubrik please reach out to dan.raynes@rubrik.com