At Artesia General Hospital, Zero Downtime Is a Matter of Saving Lives

“C1 came to the task and found ways to make some adjustments to ensure we could meet executive timeframes for ensuring zero downtime. C1 and its managed services play a key part in making sure that infrastructure is running at all times.” 

Eric Jimenez | Chief Information Officer, Artesia General Hospital 

The Challenge:

A Remote Hospital, a New Data Center and Supply Chain Issues 

Artesia General Hospital’s rural location makes it difficult to attract staff as well as vendors willing to work in a remote area. The hospital’s first data center project was plagued by issues in the network environment that resulted in unacceptable slowness. 

Artesia General Hospital determined that it needed to launch a new data center, as the infrastructure it was running was reaching the end of its useful life. The hospital had to bring the new data center into play in a way that did not result in any downtime, as this would have put patients’ lives at risk. 

At the time Artesia General Hospital began the data center initiative, supply chain issues were rampant. The hospital reached out to C1 to help initiate the project.  

“C1 helped us look at the project a little bit differently. Instead of using an existing room, we expanded to a brand new data center,” said Eric Jimenez, Chief Information Officer for Artesia General Hospital. “C1 was able to adjust to accommodate the delays resulting from supply chain issues, holding the equipment for about six months while we solved construction delays.” 

Problems have also plagued the hospital’s phone system in the past, so AGH required a foundation for a telephony solution that would improve its reliability and allow it to use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to provide an improved customer experience to patients. 

In the past, Artesia General Hospital had experienced problems with service providers that charged extra for every issue that arose.  

“They would say to me, well…you didn't purchase that service agreement, or you didn't purchase the post-implementation process, and it would be another fee,” noted Jiminez.

The Solution:

Data Center Migration without Interruption  

C1, which has had a partnership with AGH for 10 years, began to solve the hospital’s issues by addressing the matter of downtime and putting solutions in place to prevent it. The hospital’s communications infrastructure is its backbone, and it provides data to doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers.  

“C1 came to the task and found ways to make some adjustments to ensure we could meet executive timeframes for ensuring zero downtime,” said Jimenez. “C1 and its managed services play a key part in making sure that infrastructure is running at all times.”  

For the data center project, the first phase involved the actual migration of the servers from the old hardware to the new hardware, a move the hospital completed successfully.  

“We were able to do the migration in the middle of the day with zero disruption,” said Jimenez. “No one knew all these terabytes of data were being transmitted over the network, and it didn't cause any slowness, which was a testimony to how well the execution happened.” 

Phase two involved the actual migration of the firewalls and the network security gear from the old data center to the new data center, including the planning and upfront work necessary to make the move with minimal downtime.  C1 converted all the servers and storage and moved the core network.  

Artesia General Hospital sought to implement an infrastructure that would support generative artificial intelligence, as the technology is increasingly being used in patient settings to provide improved care.  

Finally, C1 helped the hospital address issues related to cybersecurity, which are critical in a hospital setting. C1 provided advisory services that ensure the facility is protected from cybersecurity incidents, from firewalls to endpoints, identity protection and data security, and disaster recovery protocols. 

The Result:

A Significant Improvement in Hospital Business Performance  

For the second phase of the data center project, the hospital experienced only 30 minutes of downtime, which was far less than the two hours it had quoted to the executive team at the outset of the project. AGH credits the responsiveness of the C1 team account managers as well as onsite technicians for ensuring that the migration proceeded smoothly.  

“The project was delivered on time on its capabilities,” said Jimenez. “We were impressed with the zero downtime, because that stipulation was an add-on to the project and outside of the initial statement of work. C1 was able to work outside of that initial statement and adjust quickly, which shows how nimble a managed services provider it is.” 

Any issues that arose after the data center migration were quickly addressed by C1’s support team, who responded quickly to solve problems before they affected hospital operations.   

“C1 helped us resolve any issues post go-live, and the responsiveness of the ongoing managed support has been great,” said Jimenez. “One of the key items that we found during our data center project was that our firewall was out of date. We put in a support ticket, and C1 got it resolved within a week.” 

Post migration, the hospital’s overall business performance has increased thanks in part to C1's managed services, which no longer require the hospital to engage in day-to-day operations of the infrastructure, including the upgrading and management of switches. With C1 managed services, the hospital IT staff is able to devote time to working on strategic initiatives.