Driven by the need to “try” something new to break the “cycle” of addiction, TryCycle Data Systems is transforming the way that care is provided for people with mental health and substance use disorders.
With offices in Ottawa and Connecticut, the company’s novel digital “tether” health platform helps clinicians monitor symptoms, risks, and day-to-day functioning of patients in treatment for addiction and other behavioral health conditions.
Geoff Schaadt, VP of Technology, has been with the company since inception and says he joined because of TryCycle’s mission. “We’re touching people’s lives in measurable ways and that brings a purpose and passion to our work each day.
Through our technology, we’re disrupting behavioral healthcare delivery and increasing patient engagement, supporting long-term recovery outcomes and saving lives.”
Focused on bridging the gap between the time a patient leaves the clinic and their next appointment, TryCycle’s technology is used as an opt-in extension of treatment. Patient-driven data insights, trends, and risk patterns are continuously collected and analyzed in real time to aid early interventions, clinical calls to action, and peer support outreach.
At TryCycle, Geoff manages a team of software developers focused on building and enhancing the company’s technology platform and products.
Without resources for cybersecurity, he needed an effective strategy for protecting employees, customers, and assets.
Adding to the challenge, even though TryCycle is a small business—under 20 full-time employees—that doesn’t exclude the company from security compliance regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
“Because we serve the healthcare industry, we are faced with data protection requirements that most companies of our size don’t have,” Geoff explains. “Our customers and partners have security top of mind today and expect a high level of protection. Knowing the complexity of our market, I knew we couldn’t be limited to just an antivirus solution. We needed a comprehensive and viable option to meet all HIPAA and PIPEDA requirements.”
To improve TryCycle’s security posture, Geoff sought a solution that was cost-effective, quick to implement, and robust.
Geoff got in touch with the team at Field Effect, a global cybersecurity company that specializes in managed threat detection and response (MDR) for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs).
“I immediately liked what I heard,” he shares. “This was a company experienced in cybersecurity and similar to TryCycle—was designing its products with simplicity, performance, cost, and user experience in mind.”
After seeing a demo, Geoff chose Field Effect MDR. “Field Effect MDR is the ultimate cybersecurity solution. Using Field Effect MDR, we can check off a number of critical security compliance requirements easily and quickly.”
As Geoff explains, achieving HIPAA and PIPEDA compliance is a top priority and critical for not only ensuring privacy and data safeguards, but also landing new business. “We’re responding to more than 100 questions from HIPAA and PIPEDA about our security measures. Everything from whether we are actively monitoring inbound and outbound emails and the types of cyber threats and vulnerabilities monitored, to how we identify hacking attempts and much more.”
“Our ability to say yes to all the questions on these checklists enables us to service clients, sign prospects, and grow our business. This is where Field Effect MDR delivers maximum value, ensuring we can demonstrate a high level of compliance.”
A key Field Effect MDR differentiator is its complete monitoring and protection capabilities. From a single easy-to-use platform, Field Effect MDR monitors and detects threats across a company’s threat surface—endpoints, networks, and cloud services and more—and provides the analysis as actionable alerting and reporting to speed response and remediation.
“Field Effect MDR helps us take a holistic approach to our cybersecurity and gives us the confidence that we are securing our entire infrastructure and remote workforce,” Geoff adds.
Field Effect MDR's reports are provided as Actions, Recommendations, and Observations (AROs). This approach filters complex data into relevant information that offers a clear path to resolve vulnerabilities or issues.
“The AROs are extremely useful,” says Geoff. “Field Effect MDR doesn’t waste our time with over-alerting or complex reports. The alerts and reports are delivered in a very digestible way and are never overwhelming.”
“For anything urgent, we get a text message letting us know exactly what we need to pay attention to and guidance that helps us resolve the issue. I also like the weekly and monthly reports because I can spend time at the end of the week to review the recommendations and observations.“
For Geoff, another advantage is the company’s suspicious email analysis service (SEAS). “With spear phishing tactics, every now and then, you see an email that looks very legitimate and it’s easy to be fooled.”
“With SEAS and the Outlook add-on, we can quickly share the email with the Field Effect team and their cyber analysts will quickly evaluate it. This saves time that would have been spent manually evaluating email headers.”
With Field Effect MDR, Geoff and the TryCycle team can completely offload the management of critical security services. He estimates he has saved 20 hours a week from Field Effect MDR’s automated capabilities and the dedicated Field Effect support.
“We’ve improved our security posture and put advanced monitoring, detection, and response in place without requiring specialized staff, time from our team, or high fees.”
In fact, Geoff says Field Effect MDR’s benefit-cost ratio is so impressive, he has eliminated the need to add head count. “With Field Effect, we’ve also gained a team of expert cyber analysts.”
‘You can’t easily replicate this level of cybersecurity knowledge and experience trying to build it on your own. Even if our developers had cycles to actively manage security, they would lack the skills and training needed.”
In addition to maximum visibility across his IT infrastructure and remote workforce, he now has an effective solution for security compliance, identifying required software updates and patches, and protecting against malicious websites through the company’s DNS firewall feature.
Field Effect MDR’s easy integration, user interface, and multiple features also set it apart from other MDR solutions.
“We are part of the Microsoft for Startups program, so we’re embedded in a secure environment and Field Effect MDR was able to easily integrate with this,” he says. “The Field Effect team is also continually improving Field Effect MDR and we experience those benefits firsthand without seeing a charge for every new feature or capability. We especially value this because we take the same approach with our customers.”
Geoff says Field Effect MDR’s capabilities have literally transformed TryCycle’s security posture while improving regulatory compliance by 100%.
“One of the biggest advantages to using Field Effect MDR is the ability to easily check off compliance requirements without investing in more people and tools,” he says. “As a small business, we’re able to experience the advantages of sophisticated security with a platform that also enables continuous regulatory compliance.”