A hospital corridor with medical beds, equipment, and a blurred figure of a healthcare professional walking.

Reference: secunet Security Networks AG

Streamlined Edge Management

for critical infrastructure applications.

Joint success story with secunet: Intuitive web-GUI for the Edge Management Suite of the secunet medical connect product family.

Business context

Managed Services and SaaS offer healthcare facilities significant opportunities – from increased efficiency to improved care enabled by digital solutions. In practice, however, they face complex IT landscapes. Existing networks and systems must be integrated while simultaneously meeting stringent data protection and IT security requirements. This significantly complicates the introduction and management of digital solutions.

Illustration showing multiple healthcare facilities connected via a SaaS connection to a centralized, remote management system operated by a user Image by secunet Security Networks AG — Image by secunet Security Networks AG

Project overview

To meet these complex requirements, secunet has developed medical connect, a secure and scalable edge gateway platform for critical infrastructure applications combining hardware & software. It enables the processing of critical data while enabling system stability, compliance, and efficiency demanded by regulatory bodies thus laying the foundation for deploying innovative digital services in healthcare environments.

For such an architecture to fully unfold its impact in everyday use, more than just a powerful edge platform system is needed. Crucial is enabling efficient central control that reduces complexity and supports easy operation of many distributed edge systems for users. This is precisely where the Edge Management Suite (EMS) comes into play, the control center of medical connect.

EMS combines central functions such as comprehensive fleet management of edge appliances, easy commissioning via auto-provisioning, automatable integration of edge applications, and operational monitoring capabilities. The goal was to create a suitable user interface that offers users an intuitive experience from configuration to updates to certificate management. This way, users always maintain full control over their edge infrastructure and can support cost-effectively from a central location (remote services & support). This promotes transparent exchange between all parties involved, from service providers to software manufacturers to healthcare facilities, and accelerates the deployment of innovative managed services in clinical practice.

Digital interface displaying eight service modules including TI-Service Management, Ressource Manager, Monitoring, Card Terminal Management, Remote Maintenance, Device Management, 3rd Party Integration, and App Management. Image by secunet Security Networks AG — Image by secunet Security Networks AG

Approach & Solution

To ensure an intuitive and user-friendly web-GUI and efficient implementation of this application, we collaborated using an integrated team of project managers, software developers, testers, software architects, and scrum masters together with the product manager from secunet in an agile setting.

The close collaboration across all project phases from conception to demonstration to implementation and testing enabled continuous learning throughout the project, which in turn supported targeted and rapid implementation while strictly adhering to secunet’s style guides.

The developed solution allows users to determine which devices are available and their respective status. Users can access a variety of functions such as managing configurations, grouping devices, restarting them, performing firmware updates, installing software applications, or centrally managing certificates. Additionally, the solution was developed so that the technical foundation of EMS allows for continuous and scalable continued development.

Provided services

Requirements management
Agile project management according to SCRUM
Architectural consulting
Software development
Test implementation
Deployment automation

Technical environment

React
TypeScript
Azure DevOps
Tailwind CSS
Playwright
Docker
Keycloak
PostgreSQL

Isometric illustration showing a central digital device connected to various medical icons, healthcare facilities, and cloud services Image by secunet Security Networks AG — Image by secunet Security Networks AG

Result

A user-friendly web interface for a scalable EMS solution was developed to efficiently manage several thousand secunet medical connect gateways in parallel in a critical infrastructure environment. Our strong consulting competence, experienced development teams, and agile, integrated collaboration with the customer's teams were crucial for the successful implementation of the solution. The partnership enabled the continuous development of the required releases. With the initial version, secunet was able to gather customer experiences and incorporate them into the development of further versions. Within 12 months, a steadily growing, user-centric feature set was developed.

A strong partnership to accelerate digitalization in healthcare with innovative edge-to-cloud solutions.

Beyond the project-specific collaboration, we develop solutions for secure cloud and edge applications in healthcare together with secunet. We utilize synergies to combine the experiences and competencies of both partners and unite our strengths.

An example of this is our cooperation in the research project SEMECO. secunet advances the edge gateway platform to support the enable secure Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). Our ZEISS Digital Innovation research team uses this environment to deploy innovative healthcare services into clinical settings. Together we work on innovative digital solutions for critical infrastructure environments such as operating room and intensive care units.

At the same time, we jointly evaluate use cases such as a manufacturer-independent management of medical devices. Such solutions are based on both software components and hardware solutions and thus benefit from the combined expertise of secunet and ZEISS Digital Innovation.

The initial research collaboration showed us that we can pursue various ambitious goals together. ZEISS Digital Innovation develops software applications for various digital healthcare services day in and day out. Thus, we were able to gain a strong partner for our EMS development who brings both technical expertise and deep industry experience. ZEISS Digital Innovation always acted as a highly professional consultant and delivered results of the highest quality in an agile manner. Furthermore, EMS can also serve as a basis for other interesting application scenarios, both as a technical foundation or in the expansion of industry-specific functionalities.

Torsten Redlich Global Head of Medical Security, secunet Security Networks AG