Northeast Georgia Health System Secures AI and Cloud Technologies to Accelerate Clinical Innovation

“Patient health information is the lifeblood of everything we do,” Davis explains. “Protecting Epic and information from our emergency, oncology, and cardiology departments enables NGHS to deliver excellent care and improve patient outcomes.”

Across this dynamic environment, visibility and context are foundational.

“If we can’t see it, we can’t secure it,” Samples says. “Without comprehensive visibility, risks, vulnerabilities, and gaps may go unmanaged. Visibility is everything in our business.”

“We needed the right technology, properly configured and integrated with Epic, to ensure HIPAA compliance,” Davis explains. “Netskope CASB [Cloud Access Security Broker] gives us granular access controls across cloud services and SaaS applications. Its analytics provide insight into how users are accessing resources in the cloud.”

These capabilities extend to NGHS’s telehealth environment, helping ensure secure remote care delivery.

“We initially selected Netskope for its visibility and data protection,” Davis adds. “Those capabilities enable zero trust access to cloud resources and allow us to adjust controls as needed. With this level of visibility, we can respond quickly—preventing service disruptions or data loss.”

The platform has also fostered closer alignment between network engineering and security teams.

“Too often, those teams operate in silos,” Samples explains. “By converging our infrastructure, we’ve improved both security and performance.” The collaborative partnership between these teams proves crucial during merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, allowing the healthcare provider to evaluate the security posture of new entities, establish baseline traffic flows, and build secure connectivity on the Netskope NewEdge network before an acquisition goes live. 

“In healthcare, technological complexity is constant,” Samples says. “Netskope helps us peel back those layers and understand how to optimize performance.”

Samples concludes: “Netskope is a tremendous partner to NGHS. It enhances our visibility and awareness across the infrastructure, enabling us to deliver extraordinary patient care. I’m excited about where we’re headed.”