The members of the IT department at King’s Daughters Medical Center (KDMC) had a clear initiative when they contacted Forward Advantage. They wanted to make life easier for clinicians and improve patient care, while simultaneously enhancing security. They also wanted to bolster Meaningful Use participation among physicians. This may sound like a tall wish list, but it is one that was accomplished in two months with single sign-on (SSO) and a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).
“There is often a fine line between making things easier and secure, but we accomplished both with Forward Advantage’s help,” says Scott Carpenter, lead systems analyst at KDMC. “Faster access to our systems creates more time for patient care and encourages doctors to place orders on the floors electronically.”
Choosing a vendor with the right experience
Prior to signing on with Forward Advantage, KDMC had VMware® servers in use for a couple of years; however, virtual desktops were only used by remote users. “I had some understanding of virtual desktops, but I needed help optimizing them and making them work with single sign-on and the badge readers,” says Carpenter. “There are too many things that can go wrong with this kind of implementation if you don’t have the right experience. Hospitals should not try to do this sort of project themselves.” As a preferred reseller/integrator of Imprivata's Enterprise Access Management with more than 200 successful implementations, and a VMware Professional Solution Provider, Forward Advantage was an easy choice for KDMC. “We knew that Enterprise Access Management is known to work well with MEDITECH and that Forward Advantage has an excellent reputation for successful implementations.”
An implementation requested by nurses
The project with Forward Advantage involved implementing Enterprise Access Management with badge readers throughout the hospital and optimizing KDMC’s VDI. This included deploying VMware® Horizon View (VDI) across all nursing floors, including patient rooms. “This was a collaborative effort between us and Forward Advantage,” continues Carpenter. “It was nice to know that if I had any questions, there was always someone who had the answers.” Enterprise Access Management and Horizon View were implemented one nursing station at a time, during which on-the-spot training was provided. The solution is currently used by an impressive 70 percent of the hospital’s clinical staff. “Clinicians tend to be resistant to change, but our nurses were requesting this implementation. We couldn’t roll it out fast enough for them.”
“It was tedious for them to continually log in and out of the systems,” continues Carpenter, “and that created the risk that they wouldn’t always log out when they were supposed to. It’s a much more secure system now.” - Scott Carpenter, Lead Systems Analyst at KDMC
Ease-of-use improves security and creates more time for patient care
With single sign-on, clinicians tap their badge to a workstation and enter a single password to log into their systems and applications. After this, a grace period goes into effect during which passwords do not need to be reentered for a certain amount of time. Prior to single sign-on, KDMC’s clinician workflow required an average of five passwords to access information in MEDITECH and their other applications.
Roaming with VMware VDI
Combining single sign-on with VMware Horizon View adds another layer of convenience for KDMC’s clinicians. It allows a clinician to roam by disconnecting a session on one workstation and picking up exactly where they left off on another. For instance, a clinician can lock a workstation without having to log out of MEDITECH by simply tapping his or her badge. They can then re-tap their badge in a patient room and be automatically brought to the same screen they were viewing at the previous station. “Our nurses saw the roaming feature, and they were ready for it to be installed within the week. They are now engaging patients as soon as they walk into the room, rather than focusing their attention on logging in and navigating the system.”
“We are happy to be working with King’s Daughters and to have made such a positive change for their nurses and physicians,” says Lee Howard, Vice President of Client Services at Forward Advantage. “They are saving a significant amount of time over the course of a shift. This not only benefits the clinicians, but it benefits their patients and the organization as a whole.”
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