Rebecca Buckman on Dell’s Mobile Clinical Computing

Electronic Medical Records are Revolutionizing Patient Care

 

One of the hottest topics in healthcare reform today is electronic medical records or EMRs, which are designed to improve and better coordinate patient care.

But accessing EMRs and other patient information is often no easy task at many hospitals. Unlike most offices, where people sit in front of their own computer for most of the day, hospitals typically rely on shared PCs and workstations. Doctors and nurses grab time at various machines to access patient records and medical applications on the go, across departments, often as part of busy rounds. In many cases, existing hospital technology simply can’t keep up with the enhanced workload.

Enter Dell. The company has rolled out a comprehensive solution, using hardware, software and services that make it easier for clinicians to quickly access records when and where they need them — and easily close them out to preserve patient confidentiality.

Answers: Mobile Clinical Computing

This solution is called Mobile Clinical Computing (MCC), says Dr. Jamie Coffin, Vice President of Dell’s healthcare and life-sciences practice, and its value is already being proven at hospitals across the United States.

At Silver Cross Hospital, a 1,895-employee facility in Joliet, Ill., administrators were struggling with a workstation setup that required doctors and nurses to sign in with a cumbersome username-and-password procedure for every application. The workstations were unreliable and not all of them let doctors access critical applications such as the picture archiving and communication system (PACS). Each workstation typically offered only about 20 percent of the most-needed applications, administrators say.

Virtualized Client Systems

The hospital used MCC to virtualize its client systems so that user profiles, applications and patient data were updated, managed and protected in the data center. This significantly reduced the time IT staff spent on application and patch management, and to responding to help-desk calls. With features such as Single Sign On, fast login and roaming sessions, MCC has also simplified users’ interactions with computer terminals, giving them access to the applications and data they need from any workstation, based on their credentials. The new system lets physicians sign in with a swipe of their hospital ID badge — a simple but significant change that probably saves hospital doctors a collective 20,000 hours a year, says Bill Bisch, the hospital’s network manager. That time can now be “focused on patients, instead of technology or passwords,” he says.

Improved Security With EMRs

The new setup also offers enhanced security. Users simply hit one key to suspend their computing session when they’ve completed their tasks at a workstation. Then, unauthorized users can’t access it. Since the computing session is actually running in the data center, user sessions remain live and can be accessed from any network device at any time in the same state in which they were left. No need to save work, shut down applications or log out of a computing session each time a user leaves a terminal.

And, of course, all applications are available on all clients, meaning doctors are never searching for another computer with the application they need.

Servers and Desktops from Dell support a Mobile-Clinical Solution

Dell PowerEdge™ servers and OptiPlex™ desktops are part of a slightly different mobile-clinical solution pioneered by Genesys Regional Medical Center in Grand Blanc, Mich. Genesys is part of the Ascension Health system.
 
Genesys was frustrated that clinicians were 'squatting' on computers, not willing to give them up because the log-on and log-off procedures were so onerous. The new system allows doctors to log on to computers in 10 seconds — which has made users more willing to share their machines when another doctor needs to check a record.

Kenneth Yokosawa, director of the family medicine residency program at the hospital, says the new system saves him an incredible two hours a day on his rounds.

Genesys is now rolling out the program to 700 doctors.

Rebecca Buckman is a marketing consultant and freelance writer based in Palo Alto, Calif. She formerly worked for 'The Wall Street Journal' and 'Forbes.'