El Camino Hospital in California's Silicon Valley will monitor the performance of its Web applications with new technology that measures from the outside in.

The Mountain View, Calif. hospital has deployed technology from Lexington, Mass.-based Gomez to ensure the performance and availability of applications on its public Web site and physician application site.

The hospital's new public Web site serves as an online front door to patients, physicians and the community and garners more than 2,000 visits a day. The new physician application site handles the submission and credentialing of new doctors.

Both Web applications mark the first phase of El Camino's strategy to create and deliver new Web portals to better serve its community.

By deploying Gomez, hospital officials are able to monitor the performance of these two Web applications from the outside in, using measurement nodes across California, executives said. This enables the hospital to track how its sites perform from the perspective of end-users throughout the state.

If performance drops below acceptable thresholds, the hospital receives alerts with details about the problem and its root cause, enabling officials to address the issue before end-users are impacted. With plans to develop more online services, hospital officials are given a baseline of Web performance to gauge the top performance.

"El Camino Hospital has a reputation for adopting state-of-the-art technology that benefits our patients, staff and community," said Greg Walton, the hospital's CIO. "So ensuring that our new Web applications perform well was at the heart of our strategy from the outset. Deploying a professional solution like Gomez helps us verify and improve the quality of our online services for all end-users. This not only protects our investment in our Web strategy but also our reputation."

"Hospitals like El Camino Hospital understand that online services can augment operations and productivity in a cost-efficient and brand-enhancing way – and that delivering quality Web performance plays a critical role in its success," said Matt Poepsel, Gomez's vice president of performance strategies.