DHR Health

DHR Health is a physician-owned health system that offers comprehensive medical care in over 70 sub-specialties to patients in southern Texas. Founded in 1997 to provide healthcare to the 1.4 million residents of the Rio Grande Valley where the community lacked public and county hospitals, DHR Health has evolved into a comprehensive health system. DHR Health employs over 700 physicians, more than 1,200 nurses, and is nationally recognized as a best practice model minority-serving hospital.

DHR Health has experienced high-growth mode for the last three years and is now the largest healthcare system in southern Texas, serving approximately 60 percent of the residents in the Rio Grande Valley. DHR Health has five hospitals and 120 clinics, with plans to add another 500 beds within the next three years.

Healthcare organizations are subject to strict healthcare regulations including data security and privacy. Security is important, but it can’t compromise performance, especially in a healthcare system. DHR Health’s previous security solution created performance issues that led to slow-running systems, frequent crashes, and a flood of complaints from its end users. “Their solution was to sell us a new product or service management plan, rather than fix the problem,” says Tareq Allan, Chief Information Security Officer at DHR Health. “The product was using 40 percent of my resources, and dealing with it took a lot of my team’s time.”

DHR Health needed a security solution that could protect its data, provide visibility into the network, grow with the organization, and enable it to comply with regulations without impacting performance or workflow.

DHR Health evaluated several security vendors, but Trend Micro’s comprehensive and connected security offerings put them ahead. Trend Micro’s fully integrated solutions meant a simpler solution and a shorter learning curve for its IT staff. In addition, Trend Micro’s scalability allows Allan’s team to scale the products as the organization grows, without requiring additional licenses or products. Trend Micro’s automatic data encryption helps DHR Health meet HIPAA requirements.

DHR Health’s IT staff was also impressed with Trend Micro’s threat research, which constantly tracks emerging zero-day threats and ensure that customers maintain the highest resilience so that nothing gets in the way of achieving their mission.

"The Deep Discovery solutions give me the visibility I need to see and track incidents at a more granular level."

Tareq Allan
Chief Information Security Officer
DHR Health

In 2017, DHR Health replaced its existing endpoint solution with Trend Micro OfficeScan. Most recently, DHR Health has upgraded to the most current version Trend Micro Apex One. The solution uses a blend of advanced threat protection techniques, such as preexecution and run-time machine learning and behavior analysis, to eliminate security gaps across endpoints. DHR Health has since added other Trend Micro solutions to gain comprehensive and integrated protection. Trend Micro™ Connected Threat Defense stays ahead of the latest threats and targeted attacks. “With Trend Micro, once you see the threat, you know all the products are going to automatically share threat intelligence and kick in to protect you,” says Allan.

Trend Micro Deep Security secures the VMware data center for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), optimizing protection for DHR Health’s hybrid environment. DHR Health also added Trend Micro Deep Discovery Analyzer, Deep Discovery Inspector, and Deep Discovery Director to detect targeted attacks, advanced threats, and ransomware on its network. Through signature and anomaly-based detection combined with sandboxing they are able to detect the latest threats. Allan says, “The Deep Discovery solutions give me the visibility I need to see and track incidents at a more granular level.”

"My team has gotten 20 percent of its time back, allowing me to leverage their quality and move from being reactive to being proactive."

Tareq Allan
Chief Information Security Officer
DHR Health

DHR Health must protect up to 5,000 endpoints per day. Since implementing Trend Micro solutions, according to Allan, DHR Health has had zero service interruptions. This translates to more secure data and a more confident IT team. Performance issues and system crashes are no longer a problem, and compliance is easier to manage because Trend Micro’s automatic data encryption ensures that data is always secure, whether it’s in transit or at rest.

“My team has gotten 20 percent of its time back, allowing me to leverage their quality and move from being reactive to being proactive,” says Allan.

Finally, Trend Micro’s solutions have improved visibility across DHR Health’s security landscape. “Not knowing what’s going on is the most dangerous thing. With Trend Micro and the interconnectivity of its products, I know we are protected and that the product is doing its job,” says Allan.

Next on the horizon is taking full advantage of Apex One and Apex Central, which includes substantial architecture and capability enhancements. “Trend Micro always has more features and enhancements to add,” Allan says. “I always have the support I need. A real partner will advocate for you, and that’s what I get with the Trend Micro team.”