SALINAS, Calif., Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System (SVMHS) has selected AT&T to provide a fully managed hosting solution supporting the organization's www.svmh.com Web site, integrating critical online e-business applications. The AT&T infrastructure will help position SVMHS on the leading edge of health care and provide its patients with the most advanced health care available.
Under terms of the multi-year agreement, AT&T will provide SVMHS security and flexibility in its business operations, plus around-the-clock monitoring and maintenance of SVMHS' online applications from AT&T's San Francisco Bay Area Internet Data Center (IDC). Through the AT&T BusinessDirect Web portal, SVMHS also gains around-the-clock online access to up-to-the-minute information about the performance of its applications. AT&T will also integrate a customized, secure managed email exchange service solution.
The contract expands a long-standing relationship between the two organizations, and further positions AT&T as the health care facility's primary telecommunications provider.
"We've relied on AT&T for almost 30 years now, so they were the logical choice to meet our hosting needs," said John Fletcher, Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System's senior vice president/Finance and Information Technology. "We've come to trust AT&T, and knowing that they are managing our critical networking infrastructure gives us the ability to focus on what we do best -- providing unsurpassed health care service."
"Our relationship with Salinas Valley Memorial has grown over the years, and we're extremely proud that we've played some small role in helping the hospital become what it is today -- a leader in health care services," said Jon Peacock, AT&T sales vice president, San Jose. "We're thrilled that Salinas Valley continues to select AT&T for its ongoing initiatives to be a healthcare leader."
AT&T's managed hosting services also enable SVMHS to meet critical patient data security requirements as mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Under HIPAA, every health care provider, health care plan and health care clearinghouse must comply with transaction code, privacy, identifiers and security requirements.
To develop a HIPAA action plan for SVMHS, AT&T Professional Services analyzed SVMHS' physical facility and network security, and reviewed the client's security policy in order to identify potential gaps and develop an improved security policy that the healthcare facility could then easily implement.
One critical aspect to the deal was that AT&T's data centers meet HIPAA requirements and provide SVMHS with confidence in areas such as access control (media controls), data backup, emergency mode operation, equipment control (physical security), facility security plan, as well as procedures for verifying access authorizations to secure locations. AT&T also will work with SVMHS to provide data storage and disaster recovery services.
About AT&T:
For more than 125 years, AT&T (NYSE: T - News) has been known for unparalleled quality and reliability in communications. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company is a global leader in local, long distance, Internet and transaction-based voice and data services.
About Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System:
Founded in 1952, Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System is a healthcare district with a broad range of services. Its 253-bed hospital features the Monterey County Regional Heart Center. This facility performs as many cardiac procedures as those at major university heart centers. The hospital logged more than 400 open-heart surgeries and nearly 3,000 catheterizations and angioplasties last year. The hospital also is the first community hospital in the nation to serve under a Space Act Agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). SVMHS uses new medical technologies from NASA that provide physicians the ability to transmit and receive 3-dimensional images of the human body. Additional groundbreaking programs include a partnership with Stanford University Medical Center's Clinical Cancer Program, giving greater and expedited access to additional resources through one of this country's leading cancer research and treatment centers.
