Denver Health

Denver Health Uses Sun Virtual Desktop Solution to Streamline Workflow

Denver Health is a comprehensive, integrated healthcare provider serving residents of the Denver area--regardless of their ability to pay. In the last 10 years, this organization has provided more than $2.1 billion in care for the uninsured. Twenty-five percent of all Denver residents receive their healthcare at Denver Health, and one third of all children in Denver are cared for by a Denver Health physician.

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Customer Challenges

Streamline healthcare workers’ PC login procedures and cut login time during patient visits
Examine more patients, faster, without increasing staff or compromising on quality
Cut the time, effort, and cost of PC maintenance and support
Reduce electricity consumption

Solution

Denver Health began replacing its PCs with Sun Ray 2 and Sun Ray 270 virtual display clients and worked with Sun to integrate them into existing IT systems and workflow processes. The two companies also developed a protocol for PCs to emulate the Sun Ray systems during the transition period to create a consistent user experience from one work location to another.

Business Results

Calculated potential electricity savings of up to $130,000, based on a model from Xcel Energy
Reduced initial login time from 30 seconds or more to 15 seconds or less; subsequent logins require only a password for nearly instant access
Gained the potential to increase the number of patient sessions by more than 1,000 per year, which would yield $81,000 in additional revenue for the organization’s Orthopedic Clinic
Cut the average time for desktop setup from approximately 1 hour to just 10 minutes

Products and Services

Story Details

Denver Health serves as a model for safety-net health institutions across the nation. In order to reach patients who cannot afford health insurance, Denver Health strives to minimize costs and maximize the number of patients examined each day -- all without compromising on high-quality care.

At Denver Health, doctors and nurses update patient information by logging in to PCs as they move from one examination area to another. Until recently, the login process could take 30 seconds or more to insert a smart card and enter the proper credentials. Denver Health realized that this procedure wasted thousands of minutes when applied to all patients over the course of a year. Additionally, the cost of repairing, replacing, managing, and supporting PCs across the organization -- everything from help-desk calls to electricity -- was expensive.

" Denver Health's implementation of the Sun Ray technology is saving our organization time and money. In addition, doctors and nurses are using it without further training. We install it and they use it immediately. "

— Jeff Pelot, Chief Technical Officer, Denver Health

To address these challenges, Denver Health examined a variety of IT technologies such as remote PC management, Terminal Services, software asset management, certificate management, virtual and blade PCs, and thin clients. The organization determined that a solution emphasizing server-based computing and thin clients would be the most cost-effective over time. After evaluating the Sun Ray 2 and Sun Ray 270 clients running the Solaris 10 Operating System, Denver Health chose these as its thin-client devices.

Denver Health worked with Sun to integrate the Sun Ray technology into its IT environment and to have Sun support its existing implementation of smart cards and Active Directory. The organization also wanted the new solution to offer a feature-rich desktop based on Citrix software. Because Denver Health planned to deploy the solution gradually, it worked with Sun to develop a protocol for existing PCs to emulate the Sun Ray technology during the transition period. This would give employees a consistent user experience on either device.

Key benefits of the Sun Ray devices for Denver Health include their easy and rapid setup. "With Sun Ray devices, little setup time was required," says Jeff Pelot, Chief Technical Officer at Denver Health. "Two of our technicians rolled out 24 units to an in-patient floor in less than an hour. And, after six months and 150 units in operation, we've received only one trouble ticket call."

The Sun Ray devices have also enabled Denver Health to streamline its login procedures and potentially to see more patients. Now, an employee’s first logon of the day takes less than 15 seconds, and subsequent logins require only a password for nearly instant access. As a result, the organization calculates that the time savings may translate into 1,000 more patient sessions per year, yielding a possible increase in annual revenue of up to $81,000 in the organization’s Orthopedic Clinic. And finally, the Sun Ray devices are energy-efficient. A potential electricity savings of up to $130,000 has been calculated based on a model from Xcel Energy.