The Organization
The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) serves approximately one-quarter of a million residents each year, making it the largest mental health service system in the nation. It provides a diverse spectrum of mental health services to all ages, including mental health assessments, crisis intervention, case management and medication support in both residential and outpatient settings. Its workforce includes psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, medical doctors, clergy and trained mental health consumers.

The Challenge
Responsible for providing mental health services across 130 directly-operated sites in LA County, the Department of Mental Health manages sensitive and personal client data for thousands of residents, making data integrity of utmost importance. Additionally, DMH is mandated to adhere to strict HIPAA regulations to ensure the confidentiality of patient data is not compromised. With widely available and low-cost USB memory devices beginning to appear within the Department, users saw them as an attractive solution to facilitate information sharing and productivity within the Department. These devices, however, pose a significant threat to data confidentiality if they are lost or stolen. With more than 3,700 employees and 4,000 corporate endpoints, DMH’s Departmental Security Officer Jeff Zito was tasked with finding a solution to manage these data security threats while facilitating employees’ abilities to provide quality care and service.

The Solution
After extensively testing several endpoint data leakage prevention solutions for one year – Zito selected Safend Protector as the best solution to meet the Department’s needs. DMH purchased 4,000 licenses of Safend Protector to deploy at its 130 locations across LA County. “Safend was the clear choice to manage DMH’s thousands of endpoints. We chose Safend because its auditing and alerting capabilities were superior to other products we tested. Additionally, Safend offers a tamper proof agent that is unbeatable,” said Zito.Safend’s policy enforcement and port control capabilities were also primary drivers in DMH’s decision. “We wanted to provide our employees with the flexibility of using portable memory devices, but we also needed a way to enforce our protection policies to ensure that the data being saved was authorized, encrypted and approved to access our corporate ports,” Zito continued.

The Results
With Safend Protector fully deployed, Zito and his department are able to see exactly what data is being saved to which device and when, giving them greater visibility into how data is being used and what devices are accessing the network. Since deploying Safend, they have identified and mitigated over 1,400 risks involving patient data and portable devices.
“Using the Safend solution, we have not experienced a single data breach and now have greater insight into how employees are using portable media,” says Zito. “.Calls to our help desk are minimal as Safend sends automated messages to employees attempting to use unauthorized devices, which has a positive impact on our overhead. We have even used the roll-out of Safend at each site as an opportunity to educate employees on the importance of protecting sensitive data creating a safer environment overall”

In Conclusion
“At Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health we want to ensure that safeguarding private patient data is included in the services we provide,” said Zito. “I’m able to sleep better at night knowing that we have Safend as a core part of our data leakage prevention strategy.”