With lives on the line every day, downtime simply isn’t an option for emergency transport service, Air Methods. Air-based computers are critical to the company’s ability to receive dispatch requests, launch helicopters, and save lives.

But prior to 2018, the company’s infrastructure was unreliable, putting Air Methods at risk of missing opportunities to respond to emergencies. Manual maintenance of more than 3,000 endpoint devices put a serious drain on company resources, and legacy servers struggled to work seamlessly with new software, leaving Air Methods vulnerable to
malware attacks.

Enter Model Technology Solutions. The Model team redesigned and rebuilt the System Center Configuration Manager infrastructure, replaced Air Methods’ legacy management solution with an updated footprint, and created a fresh set of standards to better protect the company against cyberattacks and minimize bandwidth challenges.

Early Success

Just weeks after the new infrastructure went live, Air Methods saw an improvement a 90% improvement in patching and compliance. “Patching is the single best way to shrink the attack surface and protect against malware and malicious attacks such as cryptomining,” explains Jason Rutherford, Managing Partner of Model Technology Solutions.

A standardized infrastructure means Air Methods’ IT department won’t have to waste precious time maintaining systems and can focus on saving lives.

“When hundreds of our employees need assistance with a new software program, the IT department gets backed up, and our staff doesn’t have access to the tools they need to effectively do their jobs.” – Jerry Hood, Air Methods’ Director of Infrastructure and Operations.

The Back Story

Air Methods delivers lifesaving care to more than 100,000 patients a year. With more than 3,000 end points, there was a constant struggle to keep systems up to date. The internal team consisted of three or four SCCM administrators and every update was done manually. If 100 employees needed a new piece of software, those administrators would be tied up for weeks trying to help all of the end users.

When Model was brought onboard, they anticipated using Air Methods’ existing infrastructure, which consisted of 16 servers. However, those servers kept crashing and the newly installed software wasn’t operating correctly. Model rebuilt the entire infrastructure, adding seven new servers in the process.

Standardizing and managing their infrastructure and automating software updates ensure that Air Methods remains compliant and team members are up to speed. It also improves enablement, speeds software adoption and allows for quicker, more thorough training of tech and end users.

Lifesaving Impact

Lives literally depend on Air Methods’ ability to quickly respond to emergency calls, so it’s critical that their technology enables them to focus completely on the task at hand, rather than dealing with compliance issues and hackers. With Model handling the ‘lights on’ tasks, Air Methods’ IT staff is freed up to focus on what matters most.

At the time of this case study, Air Methods had completed 100,000 patient transports and 150,000 flight hours across their 300 bases of operations in 48 states.

Model Technology Solutions

Model Technology Solutions is a consulting and managed services provider laser-focused on helping businesses realize the transformative power of IT automation. The company’s solution engineers strive to remain at the forefront of enterprise technology and the proper deployment and management of operating systems, end point devices, and infrastructures.

Model values transparency and integrity and champions the continued growth of the automation technology community.

See how Model Technology can impact your business today and help you focus on what you do best.

Learn more at model-technology.com