Getting a hospital or medical practice ready for electronic medical records (EMR) software is a big enough task, but what if the software was more than your current hardware could handle?
Green Clinic in Louisiana had to deal with that. The clinic had deployed a new EMR system to centralize patient information, but its aging desktops lacked the processing power and memory to run the EMR software.
So, what if you ordered 155 powerful new laptops from the company that supplied you with the EMR system, but all of them arrived with the wrong version of the software?
Green Clinic had to deal with that, too. The new computers pointed to the wrong server and didn’t have any of the other needed apps.
Nobody said EMR would be easy, but who knew it was a recipe for application deployment and endpoint management?
Application Deployment for EMR
The clinic used the KACE K2000 Systems Deployment Appliance to quickly build a Windows 7 image with all the right drivers and software, then reconfigured the laptops and desktops exactly as needed.
“KACE helped us speed up deployment of the EMR system,” says Jason Thomas, CIO and IT director of Green Clinic. “Without the K2000, it would have taken us up to six hours to set up just one machine. With it, we were able to image and deploy all 155 laptops in just one day. That saved us 80 hours of overtime, or the equivalent of $20,000, in one hit.”
Now Thomas and his staff regularly use the KACE K2000 to deploy fresh installs of Windows 7 to desktops and laptops throughout the clinic, which speeds up application performance for users. They have reduced the time it takes to rebuild machines that crash due to viruses or operating system issues. They can simply wipe the computer, re-image it from the KACE K2000 and have it up and running in less than an hour.
Green Clinic enjoys the benefits of comprehensive systems management in a healthcare environment:
- HIPAA compliance – KACE appliances provide the same level of management for remote and on-site workstations, which HIPAA requires. Thomas’s team can push out software regardless of where doctors are working, provided that they are logged on to the internet.
- Windows patch management – The IT staff creates scripts in the KACE K1000 Systems Management Appliance, which automatically pushes out software and updates, and wipes bad or unnecessary apps from clinic computers.
- Asset inventory and system information – IT has improved the way it supports users because it can now see all the details about any machine through KACE.
- Remote administration – By automating most of their routine management tasks, IT staff members are saving about 20 hours each week in administrative time and travel.
Green Clinic has capitalized on that kind of comprehensive systems management to become an integral part of the medical practice and collaborate for better patient care.
Read our new paper, Realizing the Return on Healthcare IT Investment, and discover more ways to reduce the complexity and cost of application deployment and endpoint protection in your healthcare organization.
