I found this article which described a number of the offerings that Dell has offered to help Healthcare IT. I’m sure this could sound a lot like a sales pitch for Dell. It’s not intended to be a sales pitch for Dell. In fact, most of the solutions are being offered through Dell partners like Symantec, VMWare, Citrix, etc. I’d caution that you should look around since you can certainly find the exact same products from other sales channels than Dell. As always, it’s best to look around when purchasing any of the products described below.

What I did find interesting was all of the various types of packages that Dell and its partners are trying to offer to healthcare IT. My big question for you, is how can we ever keep up with all these cool technologies?

The following are snippets of the article linked above. I’ll add my commentary in italics below each section.

Dell Mobile Clinical Computing Solution

Among the new offerings announced is Dell Mobile Clinical Computing Solutions. This lets physicians access patients’ records from any terminal using smart cards and Symantec’s (Nasdaq: SYMC) Workspace Corporate product for single sign-on and secure authentication.

This capability is not entirely new, however. Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) has offered roaming capabilities using smart cards and single sign-on access through its Sun Ray technology, both in the U.S. and worldwide, for several years now. U.S. Sun Ray customers in the healthcare field include Denver Health, which provides healthcare for a quarter of all residents of Denver, Colo.

Smart Cards are interesting to talk about and interesting to see in action, but I just personally have never been fond of trying to manage smart cards. They’re expensive and prone to be lost. Can someone else make the case for them? I’d be interested to hear it.

On-Demand Desktop Streaming

Another element of Dell’s new lineup is On-Demand Desktop Streaming. This is for stationary environments where data management and security are critical. Virtual disk images will be streamed to desktops. This enhances security because users get a new, pristine image every time they boot up.

While Dell partners with VMware (NYSE: VMW), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) for virtualization, it’s likely that Citrix has been picked for this solution, as it is based on streaming images to the desktop.

On demand desktop streaming is a really cool concept. I think that in the next 2 years, the thin client on the desktop will become a major reality. Of course, I think this really only applies to large scale implementations that can benefit from the savings of virtualization and thin clients. Small offices will still be buying the regular old desktops. I don’t know what Dell will do, but I see VMWare becoming the dominate player in this space and Citrix losing some of its hold.

Virtual Remote Desktop

Virtual Remote Desktop offers centralized control and management of end-user devices while enabling personalized end-user desktops, access from any device — whether within our outside the corporate firewall — and session mobility, where a single desktop session can follow the user from one device to another.

The solution was developed in collaboration with Citrix. It consists of Citrix XenServer Dell Edition; Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller; Citrix Secure Gateway; and Citrix Provisioning Server.

This sounds like the idea of taking the desktop to your mobile phone. The mobile phone is getting there now with 3G speeds. I’d like to see this work. I’m afraid it’s still not going to be as nice as using a desktop.

Dell, Perot and the Cloud

In addition to Mobile Clinical Computing, Dell is teaming up with Perot Systems to provide virtualized desktop, storage, server and electronic health records on-premise, hosted off-site or in secure private clouds.

Perot also works with other major vendors in healthcare IT, such as IBM (NYSE: IBM) , HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Sun. “We’re vendor-agnostic,” Moss said. “We work with whatever’s best for the client.”

I don’t know anything about Perot systems, but it sounds interesting. I might have to learn more. Anyone else ever used Perot systems before that can tell me what it’s like?

I’ve had on my list to do a nice post talking about all the people suggesting how meaningful use should be defined. Unfortunately, I’ve been sidetracked by a number of projects in my life. Not the least of which is a website about EMR and EHR that I’ll announce officially on this website shortly. Hopefully I’ll have the time to do a full fledge post on defining meaningful use very soon. I’ve been collecting a lot of perspectives on meaningful use and so it just takes a lot of energy to sort through them all.

The other thing that has really taken my time was this presentation about EMR that I did today at a local medical school. You may remember that I asked for some help in preparing a quality EMR presentation and so I wanted to thank all those who contributed to my presentation. It’s really amazing how much better the readers of this website can make me look in a presentation or article that I’m doing. I must admit that I really enjoy doing presentations and I love talking about EMR. So, it was a lot of fun. I think next on my wish list is to be invited to present at some EMR related conference or even better would be to take part in a panel at some conference.

What I did find really interesting with the medical students was what it was like to explain the HITECH Act and $18 billion of EHR stimulus money to a bunch of students. They were all just laughing at the way the HITECH act is set up and trying to promote EHR usage. I was laughing myself thinking about how silly it sounds when you talk about why a doctor might not want to worry about the possible EHR stimulus money. I don’t think they were fooled by the pile of EHR stimulus money.

What’s really amazing is that I just checked and this will be my 400th post on EMR and HIPAA. I don’t usually sit there and look at how many posts I’ve done. I just try to create some good content that people will find useful. Then, I look back and think about what 400 posts involves and I must admit that I’m pretty proud of what I’ve created here.

I also find it funny that while this will be my 400th post to this blog, I still have 168 drafts of ideas that I just have never had the time to post about. I really should go back and see what’s in there. I rarely ever look past the last 10-20 draft posts. I’m sure there’s some real gems that I just never found the time to write about. So, if you start seeing some references to older items, then you’ll know I’m just doing some spring cleaning on the blog.

I’ve got a lot of other things I’d like to do with this blog including creating some really pointed e-books on EMR implementation, EMR selection, EMR features, EMR consultants, etc. I also hope to have some more time to flesh out the EMR, EHR and HIPAA wiki. It definitely needs some more love if you want to participate. I know I’ve used the information a couple of times and it’s starting to grow more and more useful as people add information to the wiki.

Ok, that’s enough rambling for now. Thanks for being a reader and here’s to the next 400 EMR and HIPAA posts.