Zuyderland is one of the largest top clinical hospitals in the Netherlands. Every day, the organisation serves thousands of patients in the South Limburg region, with approximately 845,000 visits to outpatient clinics each year. Like many healthcare organisations, Zuyderland relies heavily on digital systems to support care processes, registration and collaboration.
We spoke with Irene To, Head of ICMT Infrastructure Services for Workspace & Telephony, about the workspace transformation as part of Zuyderland’s “cloud-first” strategy.
Within Zuyderland, IT is not a supporting afterthought but a critical prerequisite for delivering care.
“A doctor can always assess a patient or perform surgery, but without access to the right information the work becomes significantly more difficult,” Irene explains. “Registration, medical records and efficient workflows all depend on the entire IT foundation, of which the digital workspace is an important part.”
“The cloud-first strategy involves more than just the workspace platform,” Irene continues. “It also means migrating our entire application landscape to the cloud wherever possible. Only a small set of applications will remain on-premises, where we standardise management using an ‘Azure Local’ principle.”
“The main trigger for the workspace transformation was the introduction of a new electronic health record system (HiX), which required a modernised workspace that could support the strategic choice for ‘cloud-first’,” Irene explains.
“In addition, we were experiencing performance issues on the existing workspace and needed to find a replacement for Ivanti Workspace Control, which reaches end-of-life in 2026.”
“As part of the cloud-first strategy, our key applications are moving to the cloud. When that happens, you also need to rethink the workspace and bring it as close as possible to the applications. We didn’t want to keep investing in something that no longer aligned with our long-term strategy. That’s why we decided to redesign everything.”
Zuyderland selected Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). The organisation’s 5,500 virtual, fixed and shared workspaces will be fully migrated to this platform by 2026, supporting more than 12,000 employees.
“In the previous situation, all employees used a single generic workspace: a VDI environment. While uniform, this approach made the workspace unnecessarily complex and less scalable for the organisation’s needs.
“With the new strategy, we are introducing different workspace types that better match the way professionals work. Staff who mainly work from one fixed location receive a local workspace on a PC or laptop. Employees who frequently move between workstations during their shift — such as medical specialists and nurses — receive a virtual workspace via Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). This allows them to continue working immediately wherever they log in, because their digital workspace follows them.”
“This approach makes the workspace more flexible, more user-friendly and better aligned with day-to-day clinical practice. Liquidware enables this through its integrated context engine, allowing multiple workspace types to be delivered on the same device and complemented with the right applications for each role.”
Zuyderland also used the momentum of the project to reassess its application landscape.
“Some applications were absorbed into the new EHR system, and we also analysed which applications were no longer being used,” Irene explains. “As a result, we reduced the number of applications from around 600 to approximately 400. In addition, employees are no longer able to purchase applications themselves.”
Several options were considered for application delivery, including native Microsoft capabilities.
“Our requirement for proactive management and control over the timing of updates meant we continued to explore what the market had to offer.”
The choice for Liquidware was not based on a single decisive factor, but rather the outcome of a careful process in which technology, strategy and collaboration came together.
“Our evaluation started with the technical aspects: can all the boxes be ticked?” Irene says. “Does the technology do what we need it to do? Only once that foundation is confirmed do you start looking at other factors.”
During the evaluation, Zuyderland was looking for more than a standalone solution for a specific problem. The organisation wanted to consolidate as much functionality as possible within a single platform.
“That was an important factor for us. We didn’t want multiple products alongside each other, each with their own management overhead, dependencies that required expertise. With Liquidware we could combine application packaging through FlexApp with profile management via ProfileUnity, and add visibility through Stratusphere UX.”
“Equally important was how Liquidware positioned itself as a vendor. During the discussions we noticed the short lines of communication and the willingness to think along with our specific situation. With other vendors it often remained a remote explanation or a standard presentation. With Liquidware we felt they genuinely wanted to understand how our environment works. They took the time, provided explanations, and were willing to train us and adapt along the way. That created trust.”
For the implementation, Zuyderland adopted a pragmatic approach. The organisation follows the principle of ‘FlexApp first’, meaning applications are delivered through FlexApp by default unless there is a good reason not to.
“For each batch of users we migrate, we verify whether all required applications are already available in FlexApp. If not, they are converted or the user can temporarily fall back to the previous workspace. This way we keep healthcare processes running while we migrate step by step.”
Around eighty percent of applications have now been successfully packaged in FlexApp. Compatibility has proven high, and the IT team has not reported any issues.
“For me, that is an important signal,” Irene says. “A new way of working always takes some adjustment at the start, but when things go quiet afterwards, you know it’s working.”
Although the migration is still ongoing, Zuyderland is positive about the results so far. “The workspace is stable, manageable and aligned with our cloud-first strategy. Of course, we still face challenges — particularly around specialist workspaces — but the foundation is now in place. We can see that the solutions work.”
A key factor in the success has been the focus on knowledge transfer. The team already had some experience with Liquidware, supplemented by training and support from both Liquidware and an implementation partner.
“You don’t want to run a transformation like this alone. It’s important that your team is supported and doesn’t have to figure everything out independently. Liquidware helped us significantly in that respect.”
With the new workspace as a foundation, Zuyderland is looking towards the future. “We currently have a project underway to automatically assign the different workspace types to the correct user groups based on Role-Based Access Control (RBAC),” Irene explains. “This is a complex exercise. That’s why we have started developing a new application and process landscape to simplify the RBAC process and make it future proof.”
At the same time, the organisation is focused on completing the migration, further leveraging insights from Stratusphere UX and preparing for the next phase of digital transformation — including AI-supported healthcare.
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