TELUS provides cybersecurity services to SickKids

In 2017, TELUS built on an existing relationship with The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) by providing crucial network and security management services to the Hospital.

At the time, SickKids was about to embark on its largest clinical transformation project to date with the launch of its new Epic health information system. This new system integrated all patient information and charting, making relevant data readily available on any device to clinicians, patients and their families.
Operating this platform required its own dedicated network and security solution, separate from those being used by SickKids itself.

As part of the Hospital’s digital transformation, Scott Currie, Chief Information Security Officer, was tasked to convert the existing security capabilities at SickKids into a consistent framework that could withstand threats facing the healthcare industry.

“As a healthcare organization, we are entrusted with a significant amount of very sensitive and private data,” said Currie. “When I joined SickKids, my biggest concern was about all the things I didn’t know were happening. The entire healthcare sector trails other industries and we all need to prepare for constantly evolving security challenges.”

TELUS was selected as the preferred proponent for this project, following the broader public sector process of issuing a request for proposals.

SickKids and TELUS have been partners for several years on telephony and some initial security deployments. TELUS was also able to merge network and security management services and provided a single point of contact for all needs.

On the network side, SickKids retained ownership of its legacy infrastructure and systems, while TELUS’s ITIL-based VITILcare services deliver 24/7 health monitoring and emergency response, release management, device management and configuration, patch management and configuration, ongoing tuning and optimization, as well as incident, problem and change management.

TELUS also provides full 24/7 management and monitoring for the Hospital’s network.

SickKids and its new health information system are now protected by new firewalls, web content filtering, endpoint security and more, including intelligence from the world’s largest SaaS security platform.

They also have ‘single pane of glass’ visibility into any network and endpoint security event. Plus, to ensure issues are either prevented or addressed as quickly as possible, TELUS has embedded a security architect at the hospital four days a week.

“This was a major infrastructure deployment and we wanted to build and design security from the ground up, rather than layer it onto a legacy project,” said Currie, “I want to be able to say to parents and families that we have all the tools necessary to treat your child. That means having access to information when needed, a strong network that supports every platform and a cybersecurity program that protects SickKids at all times.”