UDS Enterprise, a key technology to handle medical transport

• Name: Health Transportation Group

• Sector: Medical transport operator

• Number of employees: Around 7,500

• Number of agencies: 380 bases spread throughout the Spanish geography

• Location: 4 coordinating centers located in Cataluña, Basque Country, Castilla La Mancha and Canarias (Spain)
  

Managing the logistics of 3,000 ambulances and more than 5.4 million annual services provided by 380 bases distributed throughout the Spanish geography is a complex task. Every time the call center of Health Transportation Group (HTG) receives a call, they have to locate the nearest medical vehicle or plan the most optimal route. Every second counts, and that’s why the technology that allows the people in charge of performing this work to do it with the greatest precision and efficiency possible cannot fail. HTG trusts UDS Enterprise to provide their employees with the IT tools they need to carry out their professional work at any time, from any place and device.

“We decided to adopt a stable, strong and durable remote working solution. That is why we opted for the virtualization of desktops and applications with UDS Enterprise,” says David Jiménez. The launch of the platform has been done in a situation as critical as the Covid-19 pandemic, a time when they totally depend on technology to continue providing the service with the same agility as before, and thus be able to serve all the people who need it.

Prior to implementing the final solution, they had to be sure that it met all their requirements. “We run a proof of concept that was set up in less than a month and, shortly after, when we saw that everything was working seamlessly, we put the project into production,” explains Jiménez. “Initially we opted for UDS Enterprise due to its tight cost, but after testing its different functionalities and discovering the possibilities offered by its integration with multiple platforms, it technically convinced us.”

Once this software has passed the litmus test, all the coordinating centers’ staff use UDS Enterprise to work from home as normal. “We have two well-defined user profiles. On the one hand, there is the administrative and management staff, who need a virtual desktop with very few limitations. And, on the other hand, there are the managers, who require a series of unique applications,” he comments. “For the latter, we have virtualized the same applications that are installed on office computers so that they are accessible 24×7.”

The product has been very well-received by the company mainly due to its ease of use and excellent performance. “The workers are very satisfied. What they value best are its simplicity and power,” indicates the Systems and Security Manager.

The IT team has improved its efficiency and is already enjoying the simplicity that UDS Enterprise brings to its computing environment. “With this software, we have been able to standardize the infrastructure of the company and provide better support to both local and remote users.” Now all the tasks of software management, installation, maintenance, updates… are carried out centrally through a single console accessible via web browser.

IT RESOURCES OPTIMIZATION WITH UDS ENTERPRISE

After only a few months working with UDS Enterprise, the HTG IT team is already aware of all the benefits that can be obtained from this solution. One of the advantages that they will leverage is the possibility it offers to optimize computing resources.

They have recently assumed the management of medical transport in the Canary Islands. They have had to renew the full IT infrastructure and, to reduce costs, they have implemented this new technology. “Thanks to UDS Enterprise we can quickly have the profiles of users and applications on new devices. We have configured them in kiosk mode, so that they only include direct access to UDS Enterprise. We don’t even need to install the majority of local applications and, in addition, UDS includes a tunneler that encrypts all the information, guaranteeing the security of the connections,” states Jiménez.

The idea is to replicate this action in the rest of the coordinating centers of the peninsula and that all employees who need a computer to work carry out their professional tasks using UDS Enterprise.

The intuitive nature of the solution allowed HTG technicians to be able to configure the platform themselves, without requiring support from their partner, JMG Virtual Consulting. For specific technical questions, they have been in contact with the software support team. “Support is one of the strengths of UDS Enterprise. I don’t know what is better, the product or this service. UDS Enterprise is a very open tool that fits in any sector and activity. And their support service is truly agile and efficient,” concludes David Jiménez.

VDI and vApp INFRASTRUCTURE

• Broker: UDS Enterprise

• Hypervisor: VMware vSphere

• Connection protocols: RDS and RDP

• Authenticator: Active Directory

• VDI and vApp OS: Windows and testing Linux

• VDI and vApp access OS: Any

• Virtualized applications with UDS Enterprise:

  • Ambulance management

  • Fleet management

  • Cartography

  • Email

  • IP phone

  • Office suite

  • Access to internal websites