They have 6 individuals maintaining about 4000 back end sessions.  If you are not familiar with thin clients, all the functionality is done at the back end, in other words, the IT staff is not being required to handle a full PC, so all the problems with operating systems and so on that go with having a PC are gone, all the software runs from the server.  Thin clients also used less electricity, so additional savings are seen there as well.image

The thin clients are offered from a company named Wyse, who has been around for quite a while with this technology.  I also think Tablet PCs that could run on a thin client as such would also add a ton of value as now you have a tablet that can do inking.  There is software too now that can run inking from a server, Rite Pen.  I don’t know how far it is in development, but a while back spoke with them on some testing they were doing with Citrix.  I use it on my regular touch screen/inking tablet today as it enables me to write anywhere.  The next plateau I would guess would be to allow applications with touch capabilities to do the same from the server end on a thin client. 

The doctors wear a device around their neck so communication is simple and fast from Vocera Badge.  They are using “My Chart” integrated with their Epic record system to better engage doctors and patients, along with Outpatient facilities being connected.  You can view more at the website.  Patients can get online, schedule appointments, get prescription refills and communicate with their doctors, and again many of the off premise offices are connected to the hospital.  BD

Wyse Technology, the global leader in thin computing and client virtualization, today announced another successful customer implementation. Metro Health Village, located near Grand Rapids, Michigan, is one of the most comprehensive health care providers in west Michigan. Its staff of approximately 1,000 doctors and nurses provide care to nearly 11,000 inpatients each year, handle nearly 50,000 emergency room visits, and 320,000 visits to the outpatient centers each year. In all cases, patient records are accessed, updated and managed via thin clients from Wyse Technology. 

"No one knows exactly what shape healthcare reform will take," according to Bill Lewkowski, Executive VP and CIO at Metro Health, "butimage what is clear to me is that the path to healthcare IT reform is through virtualization. From Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) to physician collaboration to HIPAA compliance to IT costs, there are too many benefits to virtualization to ignore."

Metro Health currently has Wyse thin clients deployed throughout Metro Health Village. Approximately 4,000 employee sessions are always running in Metro Health's data centers. Employees—clinicians, pharmacists, receptionists—simply go up to any of the approximately 1,250 Wyse V90 Windows XP Embedded thin client workstations in the hospital, enter their login information, and immediately see the same screen they had up when they logged out of their last session. It takes fewer than 15 seconds for a doctor to access a patient's information rather than the several minutes it would take to log in to a PC, open up the applications, and call up the data.

Metro Health Village implements Wyse Technology's healthcare IT solutions

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