A Colorado-based start-up is looking to replace the traditional PC in the hospital with a smaller, more accessible virtual desktop, allowing doctors and nurses to call up relevant data at a moment’s notice no mater where they’re located.
The Denver-based ThinIdentity Corporation debuted its thin-client solution at HIMSS09 last month in Chicago, setting up stations at three distant booths on the show floor and a fourth in a meeting room. Visitors were handed smart cards offering access to a desktop with disparate applications and encouraged to access the desktop from each terminal.
Jon Cooper, a founder member of the company and its vice president of marketing, said the virtual desktop solution, using Sun Microsystems’ Sun Ray terminals, allow doctors and nurses to “smooth roam,” or quickly access their desktop – and whatever applications they need – from any place in the healthcare setting. The company’s Virtual Location Awareness technology quickly updates access to desktop content and functions, such as printers.
“This solution improves the workflow for caregivers,” he said. “We’re enabling an environment for the unencumbered use of all of their applications.”
Cooper said 1,550 terminals were deployed at the Denver-based Denver Health and Hospital Authority in 2007 and have helped doctors there save an average of 30 minutes a day, time they used to spend logging onto and off of various PCs around the hospital.
According to Gregg Veltri, CIO of the health system, which encompasses a hospital, 12 clinics in the city’s schools, eight family health centers, the city’s 911 emergency medical services response system and the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, officials were looking for a system that would reduce physician and nurse log-ons to 10 seconds or less. Using ThinIdentity and smart cards, he said, the average log-on time is now down to 5 seconds.
The ThinIdentity solution, he said, was funded primarily through the system’s PC refresh budget, rather than capital expenditures, and has saved the system an estimated $6 million in maintenance, reduced energy costs and clinical time saved, which translates to increased physician productivity.
“We know first-hand the technology challenges caregivers face,” said Joe Jaudon, ThinIdentity’s founder and chief technology officer. “When one considers that most caregivers log onto a PC and applications over 50 times per day, and each logon can take 30 seconds to a few minutes, we’re giving doctors and nurses a significant amount of time back in their days.”
“Not only are we improving the efficiency and effectiveness of today’s healthcare providers, but we’re also allowing for near-instant access to patient data at the bedside, reducing clinical errors and improving overall patient care,” he added.
