Fujitsu and VMware have implemented a secure and resilient cloud project in just days for healthcare teams in Catalonia. The project gives doctors and nurses continuous remote access to the medical records needed to fight the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic from their homes and other locations.
The ultra-rapid project was delivered for the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS) and the Catalan Government’s Center for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CTTI)1. Initially it supported remote work for 1,200 key ICS professionals at the main Catalan hospitals and across 324 Primary Care Centers and 625 medical practices. The platform was immediately expanded and within three weeks it provided all 40,000 ICS care workers with remote working capabilities. The remote medical teams gained an effective response to the COVID-19 emergency with anywhere-access to critical, virtualized applications, such as eCAP, the region’s primary care program, leveraging VMware Horizon Cloud.
The Catalan Government has been working since 2019 on remote access for critical applications
The CTTI had already been collaborating with Fujitsu since 2019 to create a remote working solution for government tax staff. This prior development was key to carrying out the healthcare project so quickly, allowing the tax system solution to be repurposed for healthcare professionals. As a result, healthcare personnel can access the two essential, virtualized systems they need to help patients. The first is a specialized care application (ARGOS) used by 22 hospitals. The second is ECAP, which the various Catalan healthcare providers use for primary care. These two solutions enable professionals to access patients’ medical histories, prescription records and current treatments – essential but sensitive information where data security is paramount.
The solution uses VMware Horizon Cloud to manage virtual desktops and applications. In addition, VMware Cloud on AWS enables CTTI to quickly and more securely move applications to the main public cloud, thus benefiting from greater agility, flexibility and scalability, as well as significant cost savings.