Is Creating Virtualized Desktops an Answer to Improving EHR Adoption Rates?

张琨

Is Creating Virtualized Desktops an Answer to Improving EHR Adoption Rates? Two of the biggest EHR adoption barriers among physicians and clinicians are 1) end user frustration with time spent gaining access to information and 2) cost of implementation. An exciting solution to these issues is Virtual Desktop Solutions. This new technology enables a fully hosted desktop environment that can be accessed by end users via a network-connected computing device, which is managed centrally and supported end-to-end. Because this technology processes applications and stores data in a centralized environment, physicians and clinicians can log in at the start of their day creating a virtual desktop session, then quickly disconnect and reconnect from that session wherever their travels take them.
In a healthcare setting virtualized desktops provide:

• Reduced Login and Use Preparation – An anesthesiologist preparing for their first procedure of the day, if allowed, could securely sign on once before scrubbing up or even leaving their home. That session is then mobile and accessible without having to go through repeated, time-consuming log in and set up processes.
• Session Mobility – Nurses or physicians can start at a nursing station, make rounds and stop off in administration with the same computer session following them throughout the day at every end-user computing device.
• Session Durability – During real-time medical charting, 4 hours into a 6 hour procedure is the worst scenario to experience compute device failure. In a virtual desktop environment the clinician can within seconds simply reconnect from another device bringing the session back into service exactly where they left off. In a true disaster where local power and network are affected, secure connection to sessions via the internet and/or technology as simple as an air card is realistically practical.
• Consistent Performance – In a traditional PC environment, all the work done by your PC is typically far flung from the applications themselves. Alternatively customized environments are built to manage problematic applications. In a virtual desktop environment all processing and data reside in server class hardware physically next to the application environment within your data center. This eliminates PC resources, reduces reliance on the network as alternate connection methods become ubiquitous and stabilizes or in many cases improves actual application performance.
• Ubiquitous Access and “Follow-me” Printing – With virtual desktops, all applications and data are available from any device allowed by the organization with appropriate levels of security and control. This means that a nurse or physician in Labor and Delivery can check on a child in NICU and can quickly print to the closest printer.
• Improved Finances – The subscription models Perot Systems makes available for virtual desktop solutions reduces or eliminates traditional desktop capital. Typically overall cost efficiency gains range from 3 to 35 percent savings, depending on the environment. Savings categories include reductions in desktop support expenses, PC refresh, and electricity costs to name a few.

Securing Personal Health Information (PHI) and Financial Data
Data security is a major reason to consider virtual desktop solutions in clinical settings. In the US, surgical centers and emergency care facilities are a common sight in residential and urban areas with large glass windows around the entrance and business office. As criminals recognize the value of personal information, a “smash and grab” approach is becoming too common for gaining access to personal and financial data. When using virtual desktop, no data is stored on end user computers. All data is securely stored in the data center. This leaves the thief with the equivalent of a dumb terminal.
Especially in states such as California, where data security laws exceed HIPAA regulations, you and your company are separately at risk to prove you’ve taken appropriate actions to protect a patient’s information. If personal information is exposed, the penalties can be as high as $75,000 per incident for you personally and the same for your business. Virtual desktops help eliminate this risk by keeping management of the environment and data within your controlled access data center.
Other advantages of virtual desktops include:

• Enhanced security – allows more discreet control of features like screen saver passwords, screen capture, cut and paste and of significant concern, use of USB ports for (thumb key storage).
• Secure flexibility – more easily manage mobile personal devices that are used to connect to information on the network.
• Appropriate use monitoring – ensures users to access information only in appropriate settings, while proactively alerting symptoms of end user problems.

Virtual desktops enable all these capabilities, while reducing cost and support complexity, enabling compute optimization and improving performance. The combination of all these factors ultimately enhances end user satisfaction. In the end analysis, it is all about “the end user experience.”
Learn more about how Virtual Desktop services can increase operating efficiency, user performance, and cost control.
Dan Chalk
Global Director
Healthcare Virtualization Solutions