By Tisa Murdock, Product Line Manager, End User Computing
For healthcare IT today – it is all about application and data availability. When the paper based records go away – the desktop will be viewed as a Tier 1 “life critical” device and it will be absolutely imperative to provide immediate and constant access to patient care applications. If a physician is in the middle of a procedure and they cannot access a clinical image or patient history to see drug allergies – there can be serious consequences. With so much change and disruption happening in the Healthcare industry, how can Healthcare IT take on such a huge undertaking?
Let’s look at the problem…Shared clinical workstations within hospital are like hummingbird feeders. The clinician quickly swoops in – accesses or enters information, charts a patient and moves on. If the end point device is not working the clinician will move to another device until they find a working unit. If the system is down the clinicians may be forced to file a patient safety violation and Healthcare IT is then forced to prepare a corrective action plan so the violation is not repeated.
Applications in healthcare are typically client server applications. Most healthcare providers have some apps delivered over network using Citrix Metaframe/Presentation Server /XenApp. This has caused them to build out huge siloed server farms that are complex, hard to manage, expensive and with multiple points of failure
How can VMware help solve these issues?
First of all, we can start by installing the client portion of the client server application on the virtual desktop for a better more stable end user experience. Think about it… the application is installed and running in a Windows environment where it was designed to run. Nobody built their applications to run in a shared services environment such as Terminal Services or Citrix XenApp. Simply moving the client portion of the client server application onto a virtual desktop means the application performs and behaves better.
Next we can deliver the clinical workspace as a managed service from the datacenter or private cloud. Easily manage all of your desktops and applications from a central location and allow physicians to access their virtual clinical workspace with that iPad. Go ahead! Nothing is stored on the tablet so there are no security concerns; and you don’t have to manage the device. Sweet!
Next we provide a solution to solve the last mile of Electronic Medical Record/Electronic Health Record delivery. VMware AlwaysOn Point of Care is a tested and validated reference design using VMware View for delivering constant availability to patient care applications and patient data. This load- balanced active active configuration has no single point of failure, built in redundancy and multi pathing to ensure an end user is ALWAYS able to reach a clinical desktop with their patient care applications.
Now that is what I call a home run – a single solution solving healthcare IT’s application availability dilemma AND creating a more secure and mobile clinical desktop.
Need a visual? Watch the short demo of VMware AlwaysOn Point of Care:
For more information please visit: www.vmware.com/go/transformhealthcare
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