The Return of the Thin Client to Hospitals–Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn Transitions From PCs To Virtual Desktops

The hospital is using virtualization technology from VMware and the medical records system in use is MEDITECH, one of the big ones around for hospitals. Nobody has to even think of why this looks good when it comes to support on a thin client versus a PC, as there is none on the device other than a little hardware. Back in the old days we used to call these “dumb clients” and I think thin client does have a much nicer ring to it.

Wyse is the supplier and they have been around for a long time with thin clients and I used to do business with one of their divisions years ago in Garden Grove, CA. Price of a device is something to look at to as there’s no ‘guts’ in the thin clients. Here’s a picture of the VMware unit and it requires no operating system at all. You just hook up the monitor(s), keyboard, mouse and you are pretty much ready to go. All data is stored on the server and much easier for the IT Department to manage-one place to go to trouble shoot.

Thin clients also say a lot of positive things for security too. This is interesting to see this transition and it may not be for everyone but it certainly beats a help department running after and supporting PCs in their environment.

SAN FRANCISCO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Today at VMworld 2010, Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced how its customer, Interfaith Medical Center, has begun the transition away from PCs in favor of Wyse thin clients. Interfaith, a multi-site community teaching healthcare system that provides a wide range of medical services throughout Brooklyn, New York, operates a newly-modernized hospital and 16 clinics, serving more than 250,000 patients every year. Squeezed by a combination of rising costs and declining reimbursements, Interfaith looked for tools that would help it continue to deliver excellent care while reducing administrative costs.

The Interfaith IT team saw MEDITECH training as an opportunity to begin the transition away from PCs toward virtual desktops. With the assistance of Tech Access Corporation, a regional Wyse reseller, they decided to implement Wyse thin clients to train healthcare workers. The team set up four training labs, each with 15 desktop workstations, rotating all staff through a multi-day training course.