Case Study: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center achieves secure, high‑availability access and reduced IT costs with Citrix NetScaler

Health-sciences center bridges healthcare and education needs with Citrix

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso (TTUHSC El Paso) is the only medical school in South Texas and the primary healthcare provider on the U.S.–Mexico border, serving underserved communities and educating medical, nursing, and biomedical students. Its IT team needed to provide reliable access to electronic medical records, imaging systems and virtual desktops for clinicians while also supporting student mobility and BYOD, all while protecting PHI/PII and meeting HIPAA requirements. Existing load‑balancing and VPN solutions lacked multi‑tenancy and sometimes failed to authenticate users, causing downtime and access problems.

TTUHSC El Paso deployed Citrix NetScaler SDX integrated with XenApp and XenDesktop to load balance apps, offload SSL, and create redundant virtual instances for testing and production on a single appliance. The result was higher availability and performance (Citrix reports up to 5x ADC performance), simpler management, fewer support tickets, and reduced infrastructure and operating costs (application management cut by up to 50%), while maintaining HIPAA‑grade security for clinicians and students.

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

Iskra Jacobo

Enterprise System Analyst