OverviewStichting Epilepsie Instellingen Nederland (SEIN) provides specialized care, educa­tion and residential support for people who suffer from epilepsy or seizures. SEIN runs clinics and residences that house up to 535 patients and offers outpatient services for approximately 11,000 people each year. It is also an internationally re­nowned research center that works with universities, hospitals and scientific insti­tutions to advance medical knowledge in the fields of epilepsy, seizures and sleep.

ChallengeTo support both research and patient care, SEIN needs to be able to share and exchange information securely to

collaborate with other institutions both within the Netherlands and internationally.

“We are the focal point of everything that has to do with epilepsy in the Netherlands, so our employees are constantly in con­tact with each other, with various hospitals and clinics, and also with research institu­tions,” said Jean Willem Barzilay, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors at SEIN. “To retrieve patient information or to ex­change research data, our staff needs an IT landscape that facilitates data exchange.”

However, the foundation’s existing IT sys­tems were mostly siloed or only connec­ted to each other via simple point­to­point interfaces that were complex and expen­sive to maintain. This made it difficult to exchange information efficiently and se­curely with other institutions—and even within SEIN itself.

“It is obvious that this way of working is not efficient,” said Barzilay. “Since every­one has their own information storage, it is difficult to reuse data or work together on certain documents.”

SolutionSEIN’s IT steering committee defined a roadmap to improve the organisation’s ability to integrate systems and share data securely while maintaining compliance

Stichting Epilepsie Instellingen NederlandTo help epilepsy sufferers and advance medical research, SEIN needs to share sensitive information with other healthcare organisations and academic institutions. With much of its data held in inaccessible silos, or linked to other systems only by inefficient point-to-point interfaces, SEIN struggled to facilitate data exchange. By deploying an integration platform using WSO2 Carbon middleware running on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server, the organisation can access and share information easily and securely.

Success StoryServer

“We now exchange data in a clear way with a single methodology and standardized integration based on open source software. This naturally entails cost reduction because expensive, proprietary software is no longer necessary.”

JEAN WILLEM BARZILAY

CEO and Chairman of the BoardSEIN

SEIN at a Glance:Stichting Epilepsie Instellingen Nederland is the foundation responsible for the Netherlands’ epilepsy institutes. It conducts research and provides specialized care and treatment as well as education and support for epilepsy sufferers.

Industry and Location

Healthcare, the Netherlands

Products and Services

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Results

+ Reduced time taken to exchange data between organisations and information systems by 60 percent

+ Enabled secure sharing of patient and medical data between SEIN and other healthcare institutions

+ Eliminated inaccessible data silos, enabling easier information sharing

+ Provided a reliable and flexible platform to support a service-oriented architecture

www.suse.com

“The solution provides us with a centralized platform for exchanging data by integrating previously

disparate information storage systems. From day one we have benefited from the user-friendly

solutions of WSO2 and SUSE.”

JEAN WILLEM BARZILAY

CEO and Chairman of the BoardSEIN

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with HL7 standards for exchanging health information.

The new integration platform would be built using WSO2 Carbon, an open source middleware solution, and implemented by Yenlo, WSO2’s European implementation partner.

To support the WSO2 platform, SEIN needed a highly robust and flexible op­erating system that would complement its open source software strategy, and provide an enterprise­level, 24/7 support structure that would help the organisation maintain and develop its systems effectively.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server was the ideal option because WSO2 and SUSE have a partnership to provide jointly cer­tified and supported middleware and platform­as­a­service solutions for de­veloping, deploying and integrating next­generation systems.

The combination of WSO2 Carbon and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server gives SEIN a scalable, flexible and robust integration platform with minimal need for up­front investment. Yenlo was able to implement the solution seamlessly, deploying WSO2 Carbon modules for an enterprise service bus (ESB), business activity monitoring (BAM) and the WSO2 application pro­gramming interface (API).

With WSO2 Carbon and SUSE Linux Enter­prise Server, SEIN has gained an integrated way of exchanging information quickly and securely between internal systems as well as with external partners. The information ex changed includes sensitive data such as electronic patient records, electronic pre­scriptions, physician information and per­sonnel planning.

ResultsThe new solution has significantly accel­erated information access: SEIN can ex­change data between organisations and information systems in less than 60 per­cent of the original time and budget.

“The combination of WSO2 and SUSE pro­vides us with benefits in terms of tech nol­ogy, information and costs,” said Bar zilay. “We now exchange data in a clear way, with a single methodology and standardized in­tegration based on open source software. This naturally entails cost reduction because expensive, proprietary software is no lon­ger necessary.”

As a platform for WSO2 Carbon, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides an en­terprise­grade operating system that sup­ports SEIN’s mission­critical integration architecture in a highly secure environ­ment—which is especially important for the kind of sensitive personal information that SEIN manages.

Since WSO2 and SUSE have worked closely together to test and certify the joint solu­tion on many hardware platforms, SEIN can be confident that the combination of soft­ware and hardware will be highly robust.

If the organisation encounters any chal­lenges, it can count on 24/7 support from Yenlo backed by the expertise of WSO2 and SUSE—providing a single point of con­tact for rapid resolution of all issues.

SEIN is already considering extending the solution by deploying further modules, such as WSO2 Identity & Access Man age ment (IAM) and IT Governance (GOV) mod ules.