Technology Record - Issue 22: Autumn 2021

180 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om W orking with Microsoft, we enabled a leading clinical research organisation (CRO) to maximise its use of the cloud to achieve ambitious business goals and save money in the process. Our industry-leading clinical research customer has a vision to become a global healthcare intel- ligence partner. It is building a new application platform to expand its business model to support virtual care delivery and decentralised clinical trials. The new platform and real-world data and information solutions will deliver differentiated, decentralised and hybrid trial solutions to meet growing customer needs. However, when the new chief technology officer (CTO) took the reins, he knew he had his hands full. His IT team spent all its time managing a patchwork of underpowered systems. While the organisation and its demands on IT services grew, its systems and infrastructure did not. And when public health is on the line, a patchwork of underpowered systems doesn’t measure up. It was time for a change. The fractured infrastructure prevented the cus- tomer from meeting its goals of continuous inno- vation, technique exploration and new service delivery. Although Microsoft 365 E5 was a pillar of the company’s strategy, it had not optimised its E5 implementation. To expand the business model, the CTO decided to leverage the cloud and build a platform to support virtual care delivery and decentralised clinical trials. Before choosing a platform, he set out his desired attributes. Firstly, all services needed to be provided by a well-integrated cloud platform instead of many different systems and suppliers. The new platform would replace poor integration and management silos with a simple-to-manage, easy-to-support and centralised solution. Similar to many CROs, our customer has a cloud-first vision for all its services and trial programs. It has offices worldwide and its users are often mobile, working from home or within different medical facilities. Only a cloud platform would provide the required accessibility and eas- ily reach, and service, all of its sites and users, regardless of where they work. Compliance and security log data needed to be insightful, actionable and transparent to provide the necessary information to make decisions and take action. Finally, the platform needed to integrate seam- lessly with Microsoft 365 and support a security information and event management service to enable the full functionality of E5. Healthcare innovation, powered by Azure Many organisations are leveraging the cloud to modernise and unify operations. Open Systems is working with Microsoft to help these businesses make the most of their migration PAU L K E E LY : OP EN S Y S T EMS V I EWPO I NT “Working hand-in-hand with Open Systems, we implemented a new cloud reality for this industry-leading clinical research organisation using Microsoft Azure” M I CHA E L P E R R I E L LO, M I C ROSOF T