Emtec Gives Patient Care a Sleek New Set of Wheels

Mobile Clinical Workstations use Sun technology to help improve quality of care

Sun Enterprise partner Emtec recently launched "the first truly mobile thin-client clinical workstation for the healthcare market," says Emtec Healthcare Manager Ron Lindsay. Incorporating smart card and thin client technology, the Emtec Mobile Clinical Workstation "makes caregivers more productive and able to spend more quality time with their patients." Staff members can share the system using smart cards or proximity cards to authenticate their credentials and connect them to their own personalized desktop, clinical applications and data. This is a boon to IT organizations tasked with meeting stringent Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security standards.

Part of a secure, Sun-based virtual healthcare architecture

The Mobile Clinical Workstation is a part of a comprehensive Emtec healthcare IT approach that encompasses multivendor server virtualization software and server-based virtual desktop software on the back end working in concert with mobile and fixed thin clients on the front end. The Mobile Clinical Workstation itself is an entirely self-contained appliance that integrates a wireless-enabled thin client device — typically a Sun Ray 2 — with a high-resolution color monitor, keyboard, and mouse into a highly compact and rugged wheeled platform. The advantages of Emtec's mobile workstation over the computers on wheels (COWs) currently in use in some clinical environments include the new system's "extended life" — 12 to 13 hours of normal battery run time (four-hour recharge) — coupled with the benefits of the thin client design. Hot-swappable batteries to provide continuous operation are coming soon.

The thin client computing approach involves the removal of all application software and data from the workstation, and hosting it on datacenter servers instead — where the user's software and data can be secured and managed more effectively — as it runs in virtual desktop packages, or "machines". The thin client, whether mobile or fixed, presents physicians, nurses, and other caregivers with their own familiar desktop interfaces, giving them instant access to only the applications and data their credentials and entitlements authorize them to use. This architecture helps IT managers control administration costs, enhance security, and improve system performance and hardware utilization more effectively than they can with "thick" client devices and distributed software and data.

Sun's innovative smart card technology, Lindsay explains, is at the heart of Emtec's virtual desktop solutions. Using this technology, user credentials and entitlements are stored on a plastic card, similar to a credit card. The use of smart cards enhances security and permits administrators to understand precisely who accessed which data from which workstation — so they can monitor caregiver activity and take steps to improve quality and compliance. The Mobile Clinical Workstation, with its integrated smart card technology, can reduce login and data-retrieval time by as much as 80 percent, according to Emtec, giving caregivers more time to spend with their patients.

Mobile Clinical Workstation in action

When a caregiver is ready to access her desktop, Lindsay explains, she inserts her personal smart card — which can also double as an ID badge — into the Mobile Clinical Workstation (or a fixed thin client workstation) and is prompted for her password. In seconds, the caregiver's personal desktop appears on the workstation screen, ready to use — and in precisely the same state in which she left it. When the caregiver is finished, she removes her smart card, and the screen goes blank as the workstation stands by for the next user to come along. Connected to the facility's secure wireless network, the Mobile Clinical Workstation can be wheeled from room to room and accessed sequentially by multiple caregivers.

According to Lindsay, the Mobile Clinical Workstation is an excellent solution for a variety of clinical applications, including cardiology, radiology, and pharmacy as well as normal patient care — where clinicians and other caregivers can use the high-resolution monitor to view three-dimensional scans, MRI results, and test data, for example.

What sparked this idea?

Lindsay, with his years of experience in the healthcare sector, recognized the conflict inherent in the dual requirement to make patient information readily and widely accessible via digital systems — and to secure it at the same time. He also understood the administrative burden compliance demands are placing on caregivers. According to Lindsay, Emtec surveyed nurses and found that 80 percent claimed that more than half their time is consumed with paperwork. With the increase in regulations like HIPAA and the drive toward electronic health record (EHR) systems, doctors, too, are being forced to spend more time documenting the care they provide.

"All this time spent on administration is having an effect on quality of care," says Lindsay. "We developed our Mobile Clinical Workstation, based on the latest virtualization technology, as a direct response to this...to give precious time back to caregivers, so they can spend it with their patients — and still meet critical security and privacy standards." Using the Mobile Clinical Workstation, according to Lindsay, a facility with 10 to 12 nurses and LPNs spread across 20 to 30 rooms could save up to an hour per shift: time otherwise wasted logging into and preparing workstations for use.

Sun partner advantage

"We've been involved in virtualization for as long as it has been available," says Lindsay, "and with desktop virtualization for the last two years." With this experience, Lindsay saw virtualization as a natural fit for the kinds of challenges hospitals are facing. "During the development of this solution, we realized that Sun had the technology we needed...and that Sun is the only one that has this smart card stuff down pat."

Emtec, says Lindsay, has been delivering the advantages of successive generations of technology to customers since its founding in 1964. "Right now, we're heavy into virtualization — especially storage virtualization — and information life cycle management involving policies to manage tiered storage." The future, says Lindsay, "is about doing more with less. It's not add, add, add."

Want to know more?

To get the details on the Emtec Mobile Clinical Workstation and how it fits into the Emtec virtualization technology approach for healthcare, read the white paper. Or call Emtec at 800-220-1120.

To see Sun's portfolio of virtualization offerings, visit Sun Virtualization Solutions.