"We trust Parallels Secure Workspace; it is a solution that gives us security."
The Hospital del Mar is a hospital in Barcelona (Spain) with more than 4,000 employees that is part of the group Parc de Salut Mar.
This organization is located on the Barcelona coast. It is one of the region’s most dynamic health, education, knowledge, and research centers.
At the end of 2019, they started looking for a secure solution to replace their current remote access setup, and they found Parallels Secure Workspace.
The Сhallenge
In 2019, Hospital del Mar used several solutions to provide remote access to virtual applications and desktops to a specific group of employees in a particular way. They needed a tool that would make external access more secure since the current solution did not cover all their needs.
After doing the research, they concluded that Parallels Secure Workspace was the solution that best suited their needs, due to its simplicity and affordable price. Thanks to Parallels Secure Workspace, the hospital was able to provide remote access to a group of 50 users in a very simple way and without high costs.
With the arrival of the pandemic in March 2020, the need for remote access grew exponentially and the volume of users increased to 400. The Hospital del Mar IT team managed to fulfill this need in approximately one week, since the implementation and roll-out were very simple.
With Parallels Secure Workspace, Hospital del Mar could fulfill its main objective to have a portal where professionals could connect and access all their necessary information and resources in an easy and secure way.
Before implementing the Parallels Secure Workspace solution, the hospital only worked remotely occasionally. However, due to the pandemic, everything changed, and it was essential for the Hospital del Mar to adapt to this new reality allowing this safe and easy access.
The Solution
The SSII department highly appreciates several of the many security capabilities that Parallels Secure Workspace offers.
One of the features they are using the most today is two-factor authentication (MFA).
Albert Márquez Colomé (SSII and Communications Director at Hospital del Mar) commented: “We trust Parallels Secure Workspace; it is a solution that gives us security.”
Not only is the IT team happy with the tool, but so are the users. As Albert explains: “Users adopted Parallels Secure Workspace in a completely transparent way. The product is easy to use, secure and it meets our needs (access to applications and desktop). It just works.”
Another most notable advantage for Hospital del Mar was the fact that they could use the smart card reader and be able to digitally sign documents while in Parallels Secure Workspace.
This option was added after the initial implementation, so the hospital IT team is very happy that the product continues to evolve and that they listen to their customers’ needs.
Furthermore, working with Parallels Secure Workspace gives their employees flexibility. They can easily access applications or desktops from any device, even using their personal one allowing for a BYOD or bring your own device policy.
These personal devices are not managed by the hospital, but the IT team is assured that their users are connecting securely through Parallels Secure Workspace.
This is another notable advantage for the IT team of Hospital del Mar, given that they did not have the resources to provide new devices to all staff and did not want to install VPNs on personal devices either.
“For example, if someone has a virus on their own laptop, we don't want it to spread to the hospital network, so we avoid using VPNs. Using Parallels Secure Workspace, we respond to the need for connectivity and avoid security problems” says Colomé.
Since Parallels Secure Workspace allows access to legacy applications, the IT team is working on implementing remote access to these through our software.
In general, Hospital del Mar likes the ease of installation and use of the product. In addition, the team thinks that the solution is very cost-effective. “It does what it should for an adequate cost, and we really believe in the product”, they explain.
Curious about how other companies in the Healthcare industry use Parallels Secure Workspace? Learn more!
