West Midlands Ambulance Service relies on agile and secure asset management for rapid response

The West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust is the authority responsible for providing National Health Service (NHS) ambulance services within the West Midlands region of England. It employs around 6,500 staff and is supported by about 1,000 volunteers. The trust now responds to over one million 999 emergency calls every year.

A merger of several trusts formed WMAS in 2006 and the service inherited a number of standalone control rooms, operating independently with varying levels of technology. After reconfiguring its emergency operations centers (EOCs), WMAS now operates one of the country’s most sophisticated dispatch systems from two EOCs merged as a single virtual EOC. To support growth and allow WMAS to remain agile enough to manage capacity needs as they arise, the organization has adopted a cloud-smart strategy, with a careful balance of on-premises and cloud-based servers equipped to handle its robust call system.

West Midlands Ambulance Service implemented BMC Helix Client Management with the goal of consolidating its mix of homegrown, manual, and vendor tools to more effectively manage and track its assets. BMC Helix Client Management deploys the proper software specific to the device and the user, ensures organizational and industry policy compliance, and keeps patches up to date until the device is retired.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took workers offsite and then returned them to the office, the solution has allowed WMAS the flexibility to accommodate both onsite and home-based workers, with critical security patching extended easily to remote locations when needed, accomplished in just one weekend.

BMC Helix Client Management’s comprehensive automation capabilities help ensure that both part-time workers and full-time employees can effectively manage the Trust’s growing number of technology assets without troublesome or time-consuming hand-offs. Importantly, the Trust has also been able to reduce its compliance risk by automating policy compliance and remediation for endpoint access.

With BMC Helix Client Management, WMAS has seen drastic time savings and efficiencies while helping to maintain the Trust’s secure, stable, and readily available emergency services:

• The solution has easily scaled with uninterrupted service as WMAS assets have grown from 1,200 to over 2,400, dispersed across both onsite and offsite locations.
• Automation ensures timely, efficient, and reliable performance of the critical functions needed for effective endpoint management: patching, inventory, compliance, and deployment.
• To help manage patient calls during the COVID crisis, BMC Helix Client Management automates a critical call flow, maintaining important communication pathways and reducing clinical risk.
• WMAS benefits from the solution’s comprehensive management and patching capabilities, freeing the IT team for other important work.