Covid 19: IT infrastructure for temporary hospitals

In response to the exponentially rising number of COVID-19 infections, the German government implemented an emergency hospital plan. This includes upgrading, expanding and repurposing rehabilitation centers, as well as setting up additional treatment facilities for mild cases in large halls and hotels. What’s needed are more beds, more medication and more staff. But just as important is the rapid deployment of a powerful IT infrastructure for these temporary stations - one that meets the latest security standards and has enough capacity to support clinical operations professionally. This presents hospitals with enormous challenges.

Rapid deployment using cloud technologies

Until now, many healthcare facilities have been hesitant to adopt cloud solutions for various reasons. However, in light of the current situation, the cloud offers clinics and hospitals a way to quickly equip temporary facilities with secure, scalable IT infrastructure. There are many solutions available for this scenario - one particularly practical approach is outlined below.

A practical solution based on VMware Cloud

• An IT infrastructure is rented via VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC), hosted in a Frankfurt data center. This cloud solution is secured with firewalls on the internet-facing side.
• The VMware Cloud is then connected to the hospital’s data center via VPN. This can be done using any IPsec-capable firewall.
• A VMware Horizon environment is set up within the VMC. Remote support from SVA is available upon request.
• Virtual desktops are installed and configured so that hospital staff can access all necessary data, applications, and services.
• Staff can then connect to these virtual desktops from any device - smartphone, tablet or laptop with the appropriate client installed, and work as usual.

No additional on-site IT infrastructure is required for this solution. If peripheral devices such as printers are needed, local printers can be integrated into the infrastructure through appropriate configuration.

Want to learn more? We’d be happy to present this solution to you in detail. We look forward to hearing from you!