Dell's MCC solution simplifies management for IT and info access for medical professionals

Dell announced a Mobile Clinical Computing (MCC) solution that is designed to eliminate the traditional trade-offs hospitals face between making patient information available to medical staff at the point of care and securing it in the data center to promote compliance with HIPAA regulations.

Data security is a legitimate concern for hospitals and patients. With an estimated average data breach cost of $202 per record, or $4 million to $20 million for recent hospital breaches — hospitals must protect critical information from unauthorized access and use while at the same time sharing it at the point of care for diagnosis and coordination of patient care.

The proliferation of devices such as handhelds, laptops, tablets, carts and desktops — and applications — 45 percent of hospitals manage more than 150 applications — adds to the complexity of the challenge and highlights the need for a solution. Hospital medical staffs can spend up to 60 minutes a day looking for the right workstation with the right applications to do their job. With labor accounting for almost 60 percent of hospital care costs and the costs to manage data breaches potentially running into the tens of millions of dollars, that’s inefficiency that hospitals can no longer afford. Dell is helping members of the hospital staff work more efficiently by offering a virtual client solution that is easy for clinicians to use and IT teams to manage.

The News:

• Dell Mobile Clinical Computing (MCC) Simplifies Management for IT and Info Access for Medical Professionals and helps improve information security, staff productivity and care quality.
  • Data Security: Patient info and applications are protected and managed centrally in the data center
  • Hassle-free, Convenient Access: MCC enables access to role-based applications and data from any device anywhere in the hospital. Single sign-on, session roaming and location awareness simplify interaction for clinicians. Silver Cross Hospital’s 1,000 medical professionals are saving up to one hour a day per professional with convenient access to the applications and info they need to do their jobs
  • Simplified Management: Applications are updated in minutes instead of hours. Silver Cross Hospital cut update time from 80 hours/application to 20 minutes. IT manages digital identities in the data center, not mobile devices on the hospital floor
• Shift from Managing Devices to Managing Identities. MCC simplifies info security and management for IT and information access for medical professionals by locking applications and patient info in the data center and shifting IT focus from managing a growing number of end-user devices to managing user “digital identities.” Digital identities are a combination of user profile, preferences, applications and privileges that give medical professionals authorized access to applications from any device anywhere in the hospital. Medical professionals perform rounds without hunting for patient paper records or the right device for the job.
• Right Infrastructure for the Job. Dell creates a practical blueprint for the design, implementation and management of a virtual client network that works for the medical professional and for the hospital with the right combination of thin client, virtual desktop, laptop or handheld. IT and medical professionals are no longer locked in to a “one size fits all” model of client computing.
• A Complete Information-Sharing Solution for Hospitals. Dell is providing a complete solution from design, validation and implementation of the MCC infrastructure, to integration of clients, servers and software with training and 24/7 service and support.
• Managed/Hosted Services. Dell Services, which includes the former Perot Systems, provides end-to-end MCC services including management and hosting to assist customers with any operational scenario. Private cloud solutions can be deployed via traditional capital or utility based expenditure models to optimize resources consumed rather than building idle capacity.
• Availability. MCC is available to hospitals in the U.S. and in Europe.

Quotes:

“A proliferation of applications, passwords and end-user equipment throughout the hospital challenged our caregivers and complicated IT’s trouble shooting and technical support. To increase the simplicity and reliability of our technology, we needed a new approach,” said David Hillenmeyer, CIO of Silver Cross Hospital, a 300-bed acute care facility located in Joliet, Illinois and a Top 100 Hospital National Award winner five years in a row.

“With MCC, we enjoy five-nines application availability. We can push application updates to these 200 desktops in 20 minutes; a huge savings from the 80 hours it took previously,” said Mr. Hillenmeyer. “Shorter logins and access to a complete application suite on each workstation is helping our medical professionals reclaim nearly 20,000 hours for patient care this year alone. The solution’s roaming capabilities have simplified physician and nurse rounding and documentation. Single sign-on coupled with the swipe cards and proximity detectors enforces password compliance and provides another level of access controls. These added protections help ensure Silver Cross’ commitment to patient confidentiality and data security.”

“It’s not enough to digitize patient information. We must make it available to medical professionals at the point of care, whether that’s in a hospital or in an affiliated physician practice,” said Dr. Jamie Coffin, vice president, Dell Healthcare and Life Sciences. “Dell is focused on transforming HIT to harness the power of information across our healthcare system to better coordinate and improve patient care and reduce its cost.”