"We needed to set up a fully functional and secure solution for our employees to work at home and in the office, from their own computers. We had a limited budget and a small IT team, so Citrix was not chosen because it was too costly and complex to manage for us."
The Biomedicine Agency is a French public administrative establishment (EPA) created by the bioethics law August 2004.
It operates in four very distinct fields: the removal and transplant of organs and tissues, the removal and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, medically assisted procreation, human embryology and genetics.
Having these areas of competence makes the Biomedicine Agency the reference authority on the medical, scientific, legal, and ethical aspects linked to questions on those topics.
It reports on its activities and the application of the law to Parliament and the Government.
The challenge
At the start of 2019, the Biomedicine Agency decided to allow its staff of 250 employees to telework.
There were constraints, however.
"We needed to set up a fully functional and secure solution for our employees to work at home and in the office, from their own computers. The demand for flexibility brought by remote working came 100% from our staff. In addition, we had a limited budget and a small IT team, so Citrix was not chosen because it was too costly and complex to manage for us."
Enabling telework was the answer. Work at home had to be unrestricted for the user, but without any safety compromises.
The solution
In practice, teleworking means that users can access their fixed workstation anytime, from anywhere and on any device.
"What really motivated our decision in favor of Parallels Secure Workspace is the fact that no installation on the mobile user’s computer is necessary. The user can securely access the applications and files from any work phone, using the browser as if they were at their desk."
As the Biomedicine Agency is an institution that deals with sensitive patient files, data confidentiality and GDPR compliance are amongst the highest priorities.
The Biomedicine Agency needed to ensure that the remote work solution chosen allowed all the data to remain on their servers, and that no form of data copies could be made remotely.
The result
When the Biomedicine Agency selected the Parallels® Secure Workspace solution, they immediately saw that the right ingredients were there:
- Facilitate telework: The Biomedicine Agency needed to find a solution that would not generate a high volume of support tickets and overburden their small IT staff. With Parallels Secure Workspace, employees only need to navigate to a specific URL from any browser and device to establish a secure connection to access their landline and work as if they were in the office. There is no need to install agents or clients, which saves valuable time and avoids connection difficulties.
- Data confidentiality: The connection established between Parallels Secure Workspace and the remote offices works over SSL and the administrator can deactivate the downloading of files on the local device. In other words, what happens on the server stays on the server.
- Simple configuration: The Parallels Secure Workspace configuration was done in a few hours and remained easy to manage afterwards.
- Security: The multi-factor authentication integrated in Parallels Secure Workspace is a plus, as it increases the level of security by authenticating users in a standardized way.
Based on internal studies at the Biomedicine Agency, Christophe Vincent confirms a Parallels Secure Workspace satisfaction level of over 90%!
Curious how other companies in the Healthcare industry use Parallels Secure Workspace? Learn more!
