The world has been hit recently with a debilitating pandemic – devastating economies, clearing out stores, and spreading fear and anxiety on a global scale. Our technology is being used to deliver support to those that are battling the virus on the frontlines: our healthcare workers and their systems.
As a tech company, VMware has a responsibility to help those where and when it can. In the case of COVID-19, SD-WAN is currently being used in four healthcare-related use cases:
Work from home doctors
Pop-up test clinics
Auxiliary / overflow health facilities
Healthcare call center agents working from home
Use Case #1: Work @Home
As shelter-in-place orders sprout up all over the world, in-office employees must transition to working from home and acclimate to using standard home-use broadband, often sharing it with partners, kids, or other family members. For those in the healthcare field, this is no different, where doctors must now conduct their appointments virtually and monitor their patients’ health from within their own homes.
In addition to requiring high-quality and uninterrupted connectivity when speaking to patients over UCaaS platforms (like Zoom), doctors must also use this connectivity to access patient records, which are often stored in the cloud. Without that access, doctors cannot treat patients, thus putting the patients in even greater peril. Implementing a VMware SD-WAN Edge by VeloCloud in the home will allow for automatic prioritization of business traffic over that of other users in the home. Additionally, as broadband ISP networks become more and more congested with the explosion of work from home users, VMware SD-WAN’s patented Dynamic Multi-Path Optimization (DMPO) can help remediate poor link conditions for a more reliable experience, even when the home user only has one link or connection coming into the home.
Example: A VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud healthcare customer operates a cancer center where, in normal conditions, cancer patients meet live with doctors. Since, cancer patients are part of the high-risk category for COVID-19 due to their compromised immune systems, best practices necessitate that they not come into contact with potential carriers so live appointments are no longer practical or safe.
This customer turned to VMware SD-WAN for an emergency order of 2,000+ SD-WAN appliances to distribute to its network of doctors so that they can continue to connect with patients and maintain their level of care throughout the pandemic. With a VMware SD-WAN appliance installed at each networked doctors’ home, doctors and patients can now continue their virtual sessions.
Use Case #2: Pop-up Test Clinics
Facilitating COVID-19 tests has introduced even more complexity as healthcare officials try to limit potential virus carriers from congregating in emergency rooms and doctor’s offices. Instead, make-shift tents and drive-by testing facilities are popping in many cities and towns to test greater portions of the population without putting them in harm’s way.
These pop-up facilities require connectivity to the cloud in order to access patient records. Often there is not convenient connectivity or a circuit anywhere near these tent locations. But, using VMware SD-WAN, healthcare workers would simply use an LTE-enabled SD-WAN appliance or one with a USB port to connect to a Cradle Point LTE device or Inseego USB modem to connect to the internet and gain reliable and secure access to the cloud and hospital datacenters. An additional LTE device can be added for additional bandwidth or redundancy and SD-WAN will automatically load balance the traffic between the two links.
Use Case #3: Auxiliary / Overflow Health Facilities
COVID-19 is spreading rapidly and like other countries who are further along in the infected stage, the US may have to consider non-hospital facilities to house sick patients once all hospital beds are in use. The need to access cloud-based patient records and connect to the primary hospital are the same as in Use Case #1 and #2.
VMware SD-WAN is an ideal fit for these facilities as SD-WAN is easy to deploy, requires no trained staff to install, and can be brought online in minutes to allow the overflow site to immediately become part of the existing healthcare network.
Use Case #4: Healthcare Call Center Agents Working from Home
Healthcare organizations often employ call centers to field calls from patients, direct them to the right care department, and handle insurance claims. As work from home becomes the mandate, call center employees must also shift their workspace to their residences, similar to Use Case #1. Using SD-WAN in the home, agents are able to utilized reliable VOIP, UCaaS, collaboration applications, and SaaS access using their existing broadband links.
How You Can Empower Your Team: Work @Home with VMware SD-WAN
To help organizations quickly empower a remote digital workforce, VMware is introducing the VMware SD-WAN Work @Home free trial offering, which provides end user hardware and hosted services using one of the following Work @Home bundles:
Up to 100 VMware SD-WAN Edge 510/Edge 510-LTE for up to 90 days with Horizon or VMC on AWS
Up to 50 VMware SD-WAN Edge 510/Edge 510-LTE for up to 60 days
Both VMware SD-WAN Work @Home bundles come with the following:
Hosted VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator and Hosted VMware SD-WAN Gateway
Secure connectivity to the enterprise data center
Three hours of professional service for existing customers, or six hours for new customers
With this new VMware SD-WAN Work @Home offer, organizations can expect:
Speedy rollout and simplified management with automation
Reliable access to traditional applications in the enterprise on-premises data center
Assured performance for SaaS, UCaaS, VOIP, and VDI, from providers such as Microsoft Office 365, Zoom Meeting, Vonage, Ring Central, Windstream, VMware Horizon Cloud, and more.
Secure last mile with multiple deployment options –on the VMware SD-WAN edge appliance or in the cloud.
How You Can Empower Your Team: Work @Home with VMware SD-WAN
