Using Thin Clients in a Medical Setting

I am just thrilled with my "Thin Client aka Dumb Terminals." I have them in 6 treatment rooms. I bought the cheapest possible Winterminal 3360SE ($195) with a mere 32 megs of ram and Ce.net for the OS. The unit comes with keyboard, mouse and power supply. I connected to a Windows Server 2003 to enable multi-client sessions via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). (XP Pro allows one RDP session at a time).

I purchased 17" LCD Monitors from Costco $199 to attach to the 3360 Winterminal.

Goals/Functions:

1. Patient Education
2. Matriculate patients (each treatment room is in essence a private kiosk)
3. Chart with EMR
3. Sign up for Newsletter

Technology: Since the processing is actually done on the server and not on the Winterminal, the results are phenomenal! I access my EMR (800 megs of patient data) and PM system as fast as if I am on the local drive of my P4 server! Actually perhaps slightly faster because the application logic executes on the server and only screen updates, mouse movements and keystrokes are transmitted via the session. The session enables the user to access server-based applications that appear to run locally on the client machine but execute on the server.

Application: I have thin clients in 10 treatment rooms that allow my staff to Matriculate in private or patients to enter their own Demographics, or Surf selected sights, fill out check box Progress Forms, watch an educational DVD and of course I can Chart with a shared EMR. All the monitor screens open with a custom web page designed to educate and edify. (This latter page is a work in progress).

I have privileged and separate logons that are of course password protected:
1. Patient
2. Staff
3. El Jefe ;-)
 

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