E-Strategy Case Study: National Kidney Registry and Rackspace

The case study examines the National Kidney Registry (NKR), the largest paired exchange program for organ donors in the United States, and its decision to outsource data hosting and storage to Rackspace. Faced with security and privacy concerns regarding sensitive donor and recipient data, NKR migrated its email system, database, and website to Rackspace's private cloud hosting service. The reasons for outsourcing included enhanced data security, ensuring privacy, and allowing NKR to focus on its core mission of facilitating transplants. The analysis highlights NKR's unique security requirements, including handling sensitive data, managing data from various transplant centers, and utilizing complex algorithms for matching donors and recipients. Rackspace provided security certificates, data privacy options, and baseline security services, allowing NKR to maintain the trust of hospitals and donors. This outsourcing strategy enabled NKR to improve transplant outcomes and focus on its core competencies.

E-Strategy
Students Name
Institutional Affiliation

Summary of the Case
 The NKR is an organization that handles the largest paired
exchange program for organ donors particularly in the United
States.
 Its main mission is to get as many patients matched and
transplanted as possible especially patients who have donors
and need a better match.
 Since its inception, NKR has supported more than 2000
transplants.
 However, due to the security and privacy concerns of its data,
NKR acquired the services of Rackspace for both data hosting
and storage needs.

Summary of the case
 Since Rackspace operates a private cloud hosting service, the
company has been able to provide base line security services for
NKR hence assuring that recipients, donors and transplant center
have faith in NKR services by their data being safe.
 The National Kidney Registry has also been able to focus on its
mission/core competencies without having any worry about the
security or privacy of their data since Rackspace has
demonstrated its reliability over the years.

Summary of the case
 In comparison to other transplant centers that are not part of the NKR,
the NKR has remained to be the leading kidney exchange program that
allows improved transplant outcomes due to their donor matching
abilities.

Why NKR decided to outsource it data
hosting and data infrastructure
 The National Kidney Registry handles sensitive data on kidney
donors and recipients.
 It primarily facilitates both kidney paired exchange and kidney
paired donation transplants every year. The reasons for
outsourcing the services include;
1. Security concerns of its data.
 Due to the security concerns of its data, the company turned to
Rackspace for both data storage and site hosting needs.
 Besides, the National Kidney Registry paired exchange program
is the largest in the United States since thousands of paired
donors are connected through its system (Jacob, 2016).

Why NKR decided to outsource it data
hosting and data infrastructure
2. Privacy of its data.
 Secondly, NKR decided to outsources its data infrastructure and site
hosting from Rackspace so that it can ensure the privacy of its data.
 Since hospitals, governing bodies and also recipients require
sensitive data to be protected, Rackspace was a better solution for
the National Kidney Registry.
3. Focus more on its mission.
 Lastly, since Rackspace provides private hosting, NKR has been able
to focus more on its mission without worrying about the privacy or
security of its recipient’s data (Rackspace, 2016).

Services that NKR migrated to
Rackspace
1. Email system
 The National Kidney Registry began with migrating its entire
email system to Rackspace since the organization used emails as
the primary procedure in communicating with various transplant
centers (Casseb, 2018).
 The registry required highly secured data facilities so as to
ensure the recipient's medical information was both secure and
private.
2. Database and the website.
 Later, the NKR migrated its database and the website that front
ends the database to Rackspace.

Services that NKR migrated to
Rackspace
 This database offers connectivity to all transplant centers while
ensuring both security and privacy of data (Casseb, 2018).
 By migrating its services to Rackspace, NKR was able to allow both
transplant centers which are hospitals to have faith that their data
exchanges were safe.

The uniqueness of NKR security
requirements
1. Sensitive data.
 First, NKR handles sensitive data belonging to recipients either in
the kidney paired exchange or kidney paired donation program
(Jacob, 2016).
 Therefore, NKR must ensure its security measures are high in order
to safeguard the security of such information.
2. Huge data from different transplant centers.
 Secondly, NKR sources all its data from various transplant centers.
However, the hospitals are highly concerned about maintaining the
privacy and security of their data (Rackspace, 2016).

The uniqueness of NKR security
requirements
 Hence, NKR must incorporate a system that ensures they provide
certificates of security that allow the hospitals to have faith that
their data is safe
3. Complex algorithms.
 Lastly, NKR employs complex algorithms in order to verify
potential matches between donors and recipients hence leading
to success matches.
 This ensures that NKR meets its mission of connecting more
recipients and donors.

How NKR eases security concerns on
different parties
1. Privacy of data.
 Rackspace has been able to provide National Kidney Registry
with security baseline services and other data privacy options
they may need (Rackspace, 2016).
 Donors, participating hospitals and recipients are very concerned
about maintaining the privacy and security of their data.
2. Provision of security certificates.
 Rackspace assists ensure the information is protected. This is by
providing certificates of security and answers to questions that
allow the concerned teams have faith that their data is safe.
 Therefore, more than 2000 transplants to occur annually
successfully.

References
 Casseb, C. (2018). National Kidney Registry Teams with
Rackspace to Make Miracle Matches. Retrieved from
https://blog.rackspace.com/national-kidney-registry-teams-with-r
ackspace-to-make-miracle-matches/
 Jacob, M. (2016). National Kidney Registry Enlists Rackspace
Managed Security. Retrieved from
https://blog.rackspace.com/national-kidney-registry-enlists-racks
pace-managed-security-help-safeguard-patient-data
 Rackspace. (2016, October 12). Rackspace Managed Hosting is
‘Behind the Scenes’ Powering National Kidney Registry (NKR)
[Video File]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GOE0J_vH_k