Federation of Unimeds of the State of São Paulo adopts Citrix remote work solutions to enable almost 700 employees to perform their tasks safely, with high availability and flexibility in the use of equipment
The Federation of Unimeds of São Paulo (Unimed Fesp), part of the largest health cooperative in the world (Sistema Unimed), adopted Citrix solutions (NASDAQ: CTXS) to move its working model from on-site to remote because of the pandemic of COVID-19. With the implementation, Unimed Fesp can provide access to data and applications to its approximately 700 employees, with high performance, security and total flexibility in relation to the equipment used (desktop, notebook, etc.).
Founded in 1971, Unimed Fesp has the mission of integrating Singular cooperatives in the state of São Paulo and has an annual turnover of around R$ 2 billion. The organization is the branch of the Unimed System in the state of São Paulo, founded in 1967, in Santos (SP), and which represents a world reference in the health sector of cooperatives. The Federation has 76 affiliates, which add up to 4 million beneficiaries, 21,000 doctors and an annual turnover of around R$ 18 billion.
How and when did the Teleworking project come about?
"Unimed Fesp has been preparing to transform the health system of Unimed operators in the state, consolidating technology actions aimed at adding value to customers and cooperative members", he comments D r. Otto Cezar Barbosa Junior - Superintendent Director.
In a pioneering way, the project on Mobility and Teleworking had already been discussed and designed in the last quarter of 2019 by the IT team, more specifically by the area of Nilson Busto, head of Infrastructure, IT Governance and Information Security at Unimed Fesp. The IT area of Unimed Fesp has about 100 employees and Infrastructure, Governance and Security add up to 45 people. According to the executive, the project was designed in October, November and December 2019, but other 2020 priorities have taken the lead in technology investments. “In March of this year, when the WHO (World Health Organization) declared a pandemic, we resumed the Teleworking project and placed it as a total priority. From that period on, the movement was quite fast towards the implementation of the distance working model. ”
It was not easy
For the Infrastructure manager at Unimed Fesp, implementing the project was not an easy task. “When we develop a project, it is necessary to have time to design and plan all the steps in order to think about the dimensioning of the hardware, to scale up a natural growth, etc. We did not have the traditional time required for a project. We practically started from a Proof of Concept of the Citrix Workspace solution for adoption of the platform in a few days ”, points out Busto.
Decision was well analyzed
The Teleworking project at Unimed Fesp, from the beginning, in 2019, had the consultancy and support of the integrator AddValue. “Citrix's decision-making was not by chance. In addition to AddValue's suggestion, we also went to study Gartner and saw Citrix's leadership in the Magic Quadrant in digital workspace solutions, unified endpoint management and content collaboration platform. We took this information to the managers and the board - and the choice was made ”.
Project implementation
The implementation of the project had the full support of AddValue and Unimed Fesp managers and, in Busto's opinion, it was very fast. However, there was a need for adjustments in relation to the redesign of the architecture and dimensioning of the servers. First, 40 licenses of Citrix Virtual Apps were purchased. After they started running fully, another 200 licenses were purchased, followed by another phase with another 200 licenses and a final stage with another 200 licenses, adding up to more than 600 licenses in all. In addition to the Citrix Virtual Apps licenses, the project had two Citrix ADCs (application supply controllers) VPX1000, responsible for rationalizing the delivery of applications on any network or cloud. “In this first stage, the project took about 8 days, leaving a proof of concept migrating to a productive environment”, reinforces the manager.
Employee usability
As the licenses were being implemented, the teams practically did not need training and started to use intuitively, receiving only a link and login data. From the moment that the employees tried the solution, they began to demand and understand the full potential of the tool. Thus, the performance item was questioned and, with the support of AddValue, some adjustments were necessary in relation to the network topology. The use of home internet by employees was also a challenge that needed to be studied and overcome given the natural instability of the connection. To achieve the desired high performance and stability, it took 4 more days.
Accessed applications and security
Employees can now access from any location and any device the same applications and information that they had in the office, such as authorization systems for inpatients, ERP, internal applications, data for analysis and reports, among others. According to Nilson Busto, “the speed in accessing the ERP with Citrix's HDX, compared to the previous model (made possible via VPN) was sensational, without comparison. Still, in relation to security, there is an important gain because it is no longer possible to make a “copy & paste” of the organization's information. In other words, today no person in the organization can copy corporate information to his personal machine. Thus, we protect our data ”, exemplifies the manager.
Increased productivity and reduced costs
The increase in productivity could be perceived not only by the growth in the organization's revenue already in the first month of remote work, but also by several factors: greater agility in communication and location of people, increase in the number of meetings, faster responses, greater integration between departments and improves the employee's digital experience.
For the manager of the Infrastructure, Governance and Security area, “Citrix Workspace is a friendly, simple to use, very safe and performance solution. It transformed the life of the employee and his digital experience through a panel that allows access to applications on a single screen ”, he reports.
“The Health sector assumed an even greater importance during the pandemic and Unimed Fesp, responsible for serving thousands of beneficiaries, could not accept a reduction in its operations. It is very gratifying for Citrix to enable a key organization in these difficult times to be able to enable its employees to work with the same efficiency from anywhere and using any device. We are very happy to help Unimed Fesp considerably minimize the health risks of its employees through remote work ”, explains Luciana Pinheiro, Sales Director at Citrix Brasil.
EN 
PT 
