Mutualser: Modernizing and securing patient experiences with the cloud
About Mutualser
Mutualser is a Colombian health insurance company serving more than 2.5 million people.
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About Fortinet
Fortinet, a Google Cloud partner, provides organizations with a suite of security tools to protect data, networks, and infrastructure while driving IT performance.
Mutualser uses Google Cloud and partner Fortinet solutions to strengthen its IT agility and security, enabling better patient services and outcomes supported by data-driven care.
Google Cloud results
- Reduces IT infrastructure OpEx by 40% while increasing capacity by 450%
- Mitigates DDoS attack risks with enhanced network and data protections
- Accelerates regulation-related report generation from 5 days to 4 minutes
Eliminates 216 hours of monthly system disruptions
Mutualser has offered health insurance and preventative care services to Colombians for almost 30 years. As the number of people using Mutualser services has grown to over 2.5 million members, the company has taken a technology-first approach to best support its large-scale wellness initiatives.
"Healthcare in Colombia, and worldwide, is changing fast," says Holman Cárdenas, Chief Information Officer at Mutualser. "We need to be sure our IT systems can keep pace. At the same time, we have to manage our costs and have systems that can scale efficiently as we grow. Moving our systems to the cloud was the best strategy."
Mutualser had long relied on legacy on-prem IT and wanted to modernize to boost agility, cost efficiency, and more. Google Cloud and partner Fortinet offered the ideal solutions and support to accomplish their goals.
Improved availability, efficiency, and agility
In its move to Google Cloud, Mutualser looked to solve several challenges, including improving system availability and accelerating the rollout of new services. Outdated infrastructure led to issues with uptime, with its on-prem infrastructure averaging 216 hours per month of underuse due to poor availability. The negative impacts included less than ideal member experiences and a continued drain on the budget.
"Google Cloud helped us quickly overcome some system availability and capacity issues," says Holman. "We already have more than 300 VMs and 250 services running on Google Cloud. Things have gone really well."
Migrating to Google Cloud helped Mutualser to date decrease its operating costs by 40% and increase its IT infrastructure capacity by 450%. As Mutualser is addressing a broader digital transformation that includes cybersecurity and data interoperability to digital patient services and beyond, migrating to Google Cloud has been essential to supporting the company's initiatives.
The improved efficiency and agility has already enabled more robust data analytics. Mutualser has migrated all data into BigQuery and uses it along with Dataprep, Dataflow, and Data Fusion to gain better insights into treatments, outcomes, and patient experiences.
"Google Cloud gives us the capabilities and agility to make our initiatives around big data—including clinical data management—and machine learning much more effective," says Holman. "This supports our patient care objectives and our goals around population health management."
Mutualser is also impressed by faster service provisioning with pre-configured tools, which has reduced rolling out new services from days to minutes.
"Google Cloud gives us the capabilities and agility to make our initiatives around big data—including clinical data management—and machine learning much more effective. This supports our patient care objectives and our goals around population health management."
—Holman Cárdenas, Chief Information Officer, MutualserUnlocking data insights while strengthening security
As Mutualser regularly manages sensitive patient information, it needed a cloud service provider with a proven security track record.
"We chose Google Cloud for its security, scalability, reliability, and outstanding support," says Holman. "Given our industry's stringent security requirements, we also decided to work with Google Cloud partner Fortinet to accelerate access to expertise that would help us keep even tighter control over data during and after our move to the cloud."
Mutualser uses the Fortinet Security Fabric platform to strengthen its network perimeter and prevent increasingly common distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Fortinet helped further drive Mutualser's successful multi-cloud environment with web application filtering services, the FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall, and Web application protection with FortiWeb.
These services not only helped shore up Mutualser's IT defenses but also helped to keep network traffic moving smoothly and reduce downtime and outages. With Fortinet, Mutualser was able to reduce its operational overhead and increase security posture with consistent security policies and centralized management across its multi-cloud environment.
"We operate under strict requirements and regulations. Because of this, Google Cloud's proven security controls along with Fortinet's powerful security frameworks have been vital to our successful digital transformation," says Holman. "With Google Cloud and Fortinet, we are more confident in our security controls and have seen a solid improvement in our IT performance."
The speed and agility that Mutualser has unlocked with the help of Google Cloud and Fortinet better position it for success. For example, when government entities want to see reports based on millions of records, the company can now generate the reports within three to four minutes rather than four or five days.
"With Google Cloud and Fortinet, we are more confident in our security controls and have seen a solid improvement in our IT performance."
—Holman Cárdenas, Chief Information Officer, MutualserBetter serving today's patients
Mutualser serves vulnerable populations that didn’t always have access to modern healthcare services. With the help of Google Cloud and Fortinet, the organization can improve patient experiences and better collaborate across affiliates to deliver enhanced care. For example, Mutualser works closely with affiliates to optimize scheduling, streamline medication prescriptions and fulfillment, and enhance health monitoring.
"We’ve seen really positive impacts from using Google Cloud and Fortinet to help us deliver better, faster services. We can now respond to patients faster than ever," says Jose Garcia, Director of Data Analytics and Software Development at Mutualser. "We can now enable virtual appointments and more efficient, digital scheduling for our affiliates and members. Most importantly, we've been able to positively impact quality of life for our members."
As access to secure data becomes even more essential to enhancing patient outcomes, Mutualser uses Google Cloud and Fortinet to accelerate time-to-insight among its affiliates. The company is now working to leverage more advanced machine learning technologies to accelerate data analytics access to support more predictive modeling.
"We've seen really positive impacts from using Google Cloud and Fortinet to help us deliver better, faster services. We can now respond to patients faster than ever."
—Jose García, Director of Data Analytics and Software Development, Mutualser"We can now gain insights within minutes that used to take days to receive," says Holman. "Google Cloud and Fortinet will enable us to move toward predictive analytics so we can better understand healthcare trends and other indicators to better identify and treat conditions."
In addition, Mutualser relies on BigQuery to analyze information about healthcare trends, financial risk, and other factors that can influence healthcare management across large populations.
"We've come a long way, and we're excited to continue to focus on new ways to improve the health of individuals and populations," says Holman. "Our work with Google Cloud and Fortinet helps position us to be a leader in healthcare in Colombia."
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Mutualser
Mutualser is a Colombian health insurance company serving more than 2.5 million people.
About Fortinet
Fortinet, a Google Cloud partner, provides organizations with a suite of security tools to protect data, networks, and infrastructure while driving IT performance.