Case Study: Southern Nevada Health District achieves uninterrupted public health services through a rapid, secure work‑from‑home shift with Palo Alto Networks' Prisma Access

Southern Nevada Health District Maintains Delivery of Vital Public Health Services with Agile Transition to Secure Workfrom-Home Model While Facing Frontline Battle of Global Pandemic

Southern Nevada Health District, one of the largest local public health agencies in the U.S., serves more than 2.2 million residents and tens of millions of annual visitors with a roughly 500‑person staff across clinical, environmental, and administrative divisions. When COVID‑19 hit, the district had to rapidly shift two‑thirds of employees to remote work while continuing critical services—testing, contact tracing, inspections, permitting, and issuing vital records—and protecting highly sensitive health data under HIPAA.

Using Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Access secure access solution, unified with Cortex XDR Prevent, Panorama and supporting services, the district deployed secure remote access for staff and endpoints and centralized security management. The solution enabled over 400 employees to work from home in under two weeks, maintained uninterrupted public‑health services, stopped a ransomware attempt, ensured HIPAA compliance, streamlined operations for a lean IT team, and helped avoid layoffs.

Southern Nevada Health District

Jason Frame

IT Manager