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Powered by Microsoft Azure, Partners In Health saves money and fine-tunes its programming—creating additional resources to improve people’s health worldwide.
The international nonprofit Partners In Health (PIH) modernizes healthcare in the world’s most in-need populations. By deploying Microsoft cloud solutions across sites globally, PIH is streamlining operations, optimizing capacity and communication, and most importantly, saving lives.
Marc Julmisse, chief nursing officer at University Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti says “we’re saving time and money, and every dollar we save is making it to the field to help those that need it.”
A nonprofit’s mission is focused on serving its people and can be even more empowered by the right IT. Non-Profits can now qualify for large discounts which accelerates their mission to do good.
How can the Microsoft cloud empower Non-Profits to achieve more?
Non-Profits are constantly pinching pennies and trying to make the most of their existing resources. To help them leverage their existing resources, including data, Partners In Health created a centralized, cloud-based clearinghouse for its offices, clinics and field employees to store, access and analyze data.
It's up to the staff to input patient details but because the files are hosted in the cloud, team members can upload information from any device, anywhere in the world. This optimizes their communication and collaboration and expedites decision-making.
Partners In Health also utilizes data stored safely in the cloud to better understand quality of care in its clinics, hospitals and home visits. The insights gleaned from data uploaded in real time empowers the Non-Profit to share best practices from locations that are exceeding benchmarks, direct resources where they are most needed and demonstrate success to donors.
How can the Microsoft cloud leverage communication to connect multiple employees worldwide?
Non-Profit leaders know that communication is the key to innovation and problem-solving. Because of that, Partners In Health standardized its communication systems with Microsoft and these improvements led the way for non-profit’s directive to help people that need it most.
Take, for example, the recent Ebola outbreak. With Office 365, PIH sent an all-hands email to mobilize people—and start saving lives as quickly as possible. Such an efficient response to a health emergency would have been impossible in the nonprofit’s previous IT solution and employee’s reliance on personal email accounts.
And because Outlook is just one part of an entire cloud ecosystem, employees who are integrated into the email exchange can also collaborate on documents in SharePoint, access performance metrics in OneDrive and brainstorm solutions with colleagues half a world away on Skype for Business. What’s more, the Azure cloud identity solution provides a database of employees, their location and their work, which local technical leads can manage without relying on headquarters oversight. This solution ensures staff get the access and resources to do their jobs—quickly.
How does the Microsoft cloud protect Non-Profit’s sensitive data?
Partners In Health collects patients’ most sensitive information about their health status so PIH knew they had to show how safe and secure they were, and the cloud allows them to do just that.
Microsoft’s cloud encrypts email, allows custom security settings and protects data from threats with industry-leading firewalls and antimalware.
How does the Microsoft cloud help non-profits work in remote and challenging conditions?
Serving the world’s most at-risk populations where they work and live means that Non-Profits operate in unforgiving locations.
Thanks to cloud access, employees plow through what used to be daily IT headaches and even bigger IT disasters. By backing up the data to OneDrive, non-profits no longer worry about losing valuable or sensitive data.
Mobile access to documents, programs and storage allows employees to stay productive. The Microsoft cloud helps people stay connected and collaborate in real time, even to the most remote areas.
The Microsoft cloud empowers Partners In Health to do more with less. As a more efficient, collaborative and flexible nonprofit, PIH can respond to any health crisis—and ensure people across the globe get the life-saving care they need.
Microsoft partners with Linux for Azure certification
Microsoft has shown how much it loves the Linux platform by offering a new certification for those who show they have the knowledge to run Linux servers in Microsoft’s cloud platform. With Microsoft’s new mobile first cloud first strategy, and with the software company embracing it’s competitors lately, this should come at no surprise.
Aptly titled Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate Linux on Azure certification, it requires you to pass the Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator exam and the Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions exam first, and then you can apply for the new certification.
For those who have already taken one or both of the exams, there is no need to retake the exams, as they count towards this certification, so you need only apply.
“So now, to have half the Marketplace be Linux workloads, and to be doing work like this to get people certified, it really does represent a sea change in the engagement model [for Microsoft],” Shewchuk said in an interview. “And it’s clear that Satya has been at the core of much of this change.”
Find out more about the certification here.
The Look of Modern Meetings
An increasingly global workforce, mobility, and video are top trends impacting the evolution of the modern meeting.
As written by Michelle Burbick on No Jitter.
Blue Jeans Network recently released its third-annual State of the Modern Meeting Report , which uses data from more than five million BJN business video collaboration meetings in 177 countries to draw conclusions about how meetings are evolving over time.
This year's report highlights several notable trends. BJN has found, for example, that weekend meetings are becoming more frequent. BJN data shows that 49% more meetings are taking place on Saturdays, and Sundays have seen an 84% increase in meetings over the previous couple years. I suppose this reflects that the traditional workweek is on its way out -- something us Millennials have been crabbin' about for a while now.
Online meeting use surges when extreme weather strikes, with video meeting activity increasing by 35% during the Boston blizzard last year and by 26% during the flooding that hit Texas this past May. As this trend illustrates, conferencing technology is making it easier to maintain business as usual in situations when that might not have been possible previously.
As you will see in the infographic below, the corridor from New York to Los Angeles is traveled the most, both physically and virtually speaking, while professionals on the West Coast take more meetings then their counterparts in other regions.
While the use of conference room systems is growing, mobility is key. A quarter of all meetings have at least one mobile video caller, BJN reports, with 78% of mobile video meetings coming from Apple devices. The rise of remote workers and increasing globalization of teams are propelling the use of video, enabling team members to meet "face to face" no matter where they are or what devices they are using.
Take a look at the full infographic to get a more complete snapshot of the modern meeting.
The Cloud for Productivity and Mobility Ebook is a guide for small and midsize businesses. As mobile work becomes the norm, turn to cloud-based solutions to extend productivity, collaboration, and business management tools to employees on the go.
Mobile means business. During the past decade, mobile devices have become ubiquitous in our lives, performing a range of activities that were formerly limited to desktop and laptop computers. Now, mobility is an essential tool for startups and smaller businesses to empower workers and connect with customers.
