Healthcare Leading the Way in Desktop Virtualization

Perception is a funny thing. Healthcare has the reputation of being highly resistant to change, that paper based systems are the best solution and that clinicians will simply not use any replacement. Why else would a hospital have to prove that they are meaningfully using new technology in order to receive the HITECH funding? Couldn’t we just trust them?

So who’d have thunk it that in a survey of 477 IT professionals across multiple industries, it’s healthcare that are leading the way in the deployment of desktop virtualization! True, last year’s response to the launch of the iPad was the first insight that things may not necessarily be as they seem with physicians seemingly climbing over themselves to start using the new technology. But now, a survey sponsored by Imprivata shows that healthcare is right up there with other industries in terms of adoption today, but more widely deployed both now, and in a twelve month forecast.

But really, is this so surprising? As users have the real power in healthcare, let’s look at things from the user’s view. Consider the environment; highly mobile, even in with the walls of the hospital, even within a single floor of a building, even within a twenty yard space. Clinicians are moving from machine to machine every few minutes while moving between patients always needing access to critical information. The ability to pick up from exactly where they left off, in the application they need can save time and remove user frustration with navigating back through an application to get to where they were. What about the number of users? The majority of users are in this highly mobile mode so there’s certainly a good fit strategically rather than solving a particular problem for a small subset of users. Critical to healthcare is data security. Removing PHI from endpoint devices and keeping everything safe in the datacenter seems like a no brainer – particularly if it means that I can get to it from my new shiny iPad!

So why are we surprised? Well, we aren’t. Healthcare IT is undergoing a very well documented revolution which Imprivata is supporting by simplifying access, streamlining workflow and making sure that the detailed security requirements surrounding PHI don’t get in the way of clinician workflows. Desktop virtualization shares some of the key traits that is making No Click Access a must have for more than 800 hospitals globally. The combination of OneSign with desktop virtualization gives clinicians the simplest workflow and the fastest possible access to the information they need, when they need it.

Resistant to change? Pah… Leading the way!!!