Governance Excellence in Healthcare

A phased move, and the problems that came with scale

Each phase was a real step forward for the hospital's digital collaboration. But as more of the organisation's work moved into Microsoft 365, the operational and compliance questions grew faster than the tooling to answer them.

Four problems that threatened efficiency

• Data protection and compliance Processes around data protection were unclear, which left gaps that could expose sensitive information or breach regulatory standards.
• No view of operations The IT team had little insight into user activity, resource use or its own governance processes, which made inefficiency and risk hard to find.
• Management complexity Microsoft 365 behaved like a black box, with limited transparency into how it worked or where it was going.
• Constant change Tools were replaced or updated often, and adapting policy to each change took real effort at this scale.

What Rencore put in place

• Visibility across services Central dashboards give cross-service insight into Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive and more, with reports on how departments actually use resources.
• Lifecycle management Governance operations run automatically. Orphaned resources such as Teams channels or SharePoint lists get a service account so they stay supervised, and offboarding for deactivated users is handled rather than left open.
• Continuous monitoring The IT team is alerted to violations and risks, and problems are resolved automatically where they can be.
• High security standards Multi-factor authentication is enforced, internal and external sharing policies keep sensitive data inside authorised boundaries, and policy monitoring reduces the room for human error.
• Scalable policy Policies were written to adapt to technology change without disrupting operations.
• AI readiness Securing workflows and data processing prepares the hospital for the AI integrations that follow.

What changed within three months

Implementation went smoothly on the back of Rencore's onboarding and support. Within three months the hospital saw a measurable return, driven by better operational efficiency, cost-saving policies, lower security risk and governance processes that no longer needed babysitting.

• Operational efficiency Automation cut the manual workload on governance tasks, so the IT team could spend its time on strategic work instead of routine maintenance.
• Improved visibility Central dashboards turned user activity, resource use and risk into something the team could act on before it escalated.
• Enhanced security Data protection measures are enforced automatically across the Microsoft 365 tools.
• Scalability The platform adapts to changing needs without extensive reconfiguration or extra people.

Beyond the first three months

• Operational excellence Governance automation holds efficiency across the Microsoft 365 tools and scales with what comes next.
• Compliance confidence Data protection became part of daily operations rather than a recurring disruption.
• Support for research Secure collaboration lets researchers work with global partners while data security standards hold.
• A technology leader in healthcare The hospital set an example for other institutions on how to modernise without loosening control.

Not an either-or decision

For Universitätsspital Basel this was never a choice between operations, research excellence and compliance. It was one solution that served all three. Modern healthcare institutions need more than the native Microsoft tools to run their digital environments well, and this is what the alternative looks like in practice.