By Tony Huynh, Product Line Manager, VMware
With generous input from Herbert Maurer, Software Project Leader, Speech Processing Solutions
Many medical professionals use dictation devices to quickly narrate and efficiently record their patients’ visit reports. Concurrently, these same professionals leverage virtual desktops to securely access their clinical applications. So it is not surprising that these professionals would want the ability to use dictation devices while working from their virtual desktops.
Providing reliable and accurate dictation services is of utmost importance for medical professionals because patient information must be accurate. Prior to the new solution described in this blog post, the only way to integrate dictation devices with virtual desktops was to use USB redirection. However, USB-redirection performance over a wide-area network (WAN) can be spotty due to network latency and packet losses.
VMware has been working with the software development team from Speech Processing Solutions to optimize the performance of Philips dictation devices with View virtual desktops in VMware Horizon 6. We are pleased to announce that this integration is now available for our partners and customers.
Solution Overview
End users can now more effectively use Philips dictation devices to record patient data while logged in to their View virtual desktops. Philips SpeechExec Enterprise software is a full dictation workflow solution and integrates with View virtual desktops to provide high-quality audio recording and playback. Philips dictation devices on the client side communicate with the dictation software on the server side (the View virtual machine) by way of channels provided by Philips extension drivers.
Figure 1: Components of an Integration Between View Virtual Machines and Philips Dictation Software
Note: The control and audio redirection functionalities are kept local to the client machine instead of being redirected by way of USB back to the View virtual machine in the data center.
Supported Software and Hardware
Philips extension drivers for audio (the latest version is G12.3) and SpeechMike button redirection are now supported with virtual desktops in VMware Horizon 6.1 and later, with Windows Horizon Client 3.1 or later.
| Philips SpeechMike (USB dictation microphone) | Philips Digital Pocket Memo | Philips Foot Pedal |
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Figure 2: Philips Hardware Devices Supported by the Solution
Summary
The integration of Philips software with View desktops in Horizon 6 now provides optimal performance for more Philips dictation devices, much better than through USB redirection.
Learn more about the Philips dictation products by going to the following links:
