Through the Patient Computing Project, Glendale Adventist Medical Center is offering patients the ability to stay in touch with family and friends by offering personal computer stations in 65 patient rooms of its west tower. The computers provide Internet access and allow patients and their families to stay in touch through e-mail or social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. This means patients will be able to give those at home updates on their condition and recovery progress.
The computers installed in the rooms are called NoMachines, made by NoMachine based in Rome. NoMachine takes out the “machine” component of typical desktop computers — fans, disc drives and other movable parts — and replaces them with thin client computer monitors, which consist of a client — a box behind the monitor that connects to an IBM server — and the monitor itself.
NoMachine’s NX software installed on the IBM server pushes the operating system into each room computer. The computers in the patient rooms essentially act as remote desktops, said Roger Pruyne, senior programmer and project manager for Glendale Adventist’s Patient Computing Project.
Connections on the interface system are secure, allowing the transfer of personal and confidential information, such as patient records, Pruyne said. Personal data stored on the computer are erased after each use.
According to Pruyne, adding 65 additional desktop computers would have necessitated the hiring of several more technology workers. Also, patients’ privacy was at the forefront of the decision to deploy the so-called thin clients. With less equipment in patient rooms, the less need there will be for IT personal to visit the room. Most software repairs can be done remotely, Pruyne said.
