Desktop virtualization in healthcare set to expand through 2013

James Millington

Imprivata doesn’t virtualize desktops. But desktop virtualization is improving care provider access to patient information – and that is what we do. In combination with our partners such as VMware, Citrix, Dell Wyse, Samsung, HP and others a combination of technologies is streamlining care provider access, simplifying management and reducing costs.

There’s a lot of talk about the adoption of virtualization, and for the second year, we at Imprivata decided to go and ask over 500 IT decision makers in a number of industries about their use of virtualization, the reasons, the benefits, the rate of deployment, the types of endpoints they are using.

This year, we wanted to get better clarity between the use of what Gartner terms as Server Based Computing such as Citrix XenApp and Microsoft RDS, and Server Hosted Virtual Desktop like VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop. And, without wanting to give anything away, adoption of both technologies is strong and both are continued to grow – one, faster than the other (is that what they call a teaser?)

Of course, being a healthcare company, the majority of the research focuses on desktop virtualization in healthcare where benefits such as those that you can see in this video from Beaufort Memorial hospital are being realized.

You can download the full research study here. Here’s just a few of the headlines – there’s lots more in the full report.

If you’re at VMworld 2012, do drop by and see us at stand #528. 

  • Desktop virtualization adoption continues to rise in healthcare - In the next 12 months healthcare organizations forecast a 44% growth in SHVD, leading all other industries surveyed
  • 36% of healthcare respondents expect to have more than half of their users using SHVD within 12 months vs. 32% for financial services
  • 74% of healthcare respondents identified a strategy of thin or zero clients indicating a move away from traditional fat clients.
  • 70% of healthcare respondents use strong authentication (eg. ID proximity badges or fingerprint biometrics) in their SHVD environment
  • 50% of respondents are using application single sign-on with a further 17% planning use within 12 months.
  • The leading drivers for SHVD within healthcare are desktop manageability (29%), Desktop Roaming (27.5%) and remote access (27.5%)
  • The primary benefits of SHVD for healthcare respondents are improved desktop availability (38%), improved user satisfaction (26%) and improved workflow (20%)