Healthcare IT News - September 2007 - (Page 44)

44 Healthcare IT News ■ September 2007 between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. seven days a week. “This gives the patient control,” says Luros-Elson. The system tracks what each patient orders, allowing the hospital to reduce waste and plan menus that appeal to each patient’s tastes. It also tracks food consumption system-wide and orders food from the hospital’s distributors. The benefits to a hospital’s staff go far beyond the savings realized in not having to print paper menus. Nurses don’t have to hover over a patient vENdORS waiting for a meal order to be placed, and doctors and dieticians don’t have to be consulted at odd hours to check up on dietary restrictions. “It can be a challenge for us to offer meal choices that are based on patients’ taste preferences and to serve meals any time the patient is hungry,” says Betty Ann Stephenson, Scottsdale Healthcare’s director of hospitality. “With this system, our patients order what they want, when they want it, at the touch of a button.” In addition, Stephenson says, “Our nutrition staff now have the quantitative data in every patient room that can be used to reinforce teaching about health food choices.” David Schofield, Skylight Healthcare’s CEO, said partnering Computrition’s “Smart Substitution” program with Skylight’s ACCESS Interactive Patient System “provide interactive patient solutions at the bedside that have a very positive impact on patient satisfaction and improved hospital efficiencies.” ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: MeNu 0907 www.HealthcareITNews.com mENu Continued from page 43 dEvICE Continued from page 1 Working with a user interface designed by Skylight Healthcare, the “Smart Substitution” system monitors each “room service appropriate” patient’s dietary restrictions and allergies and updates the menu automatically if a physician changes that patient’s dietary restrictions. The menu choices are presented to the patient with corresponding nutritional information, and he or she is able to place an order at any time ● Taking care of the little things makes all the difference. We connect more providers to more payers than anyone else. But what really sets us apart is all the little things we do for both that make the business of claims and payments so much more efficient. Discover how Emdeon is changing the business of healthcare. Visit www.emdeon.com today. Simplifying the Business of Healthcare According to Mike Fodor, Pano’s vice president of product management, the company has been “in stealth mode” since beginning beta testing last May. Aside from uses in education, at call centers and banks, the device is seen as ideal for a busy hospital or physician’s office where “oftentimes there’s not enough space to put a full-blown tower PC.” Fodor notes that one medical facility working with Pano wanted to cut down on the time required by doctors and nurses to log into the system each time they change work stations, a process that can take as long as six minutes. By having a centrally located management server, doctors and nurses can access data from any workstation in the hospital. With no CPU, memory, operating system or drivers, desktop users have no need for software installations or upgrades. In addition, the desktop is immune to viruses and other malware. In terms of security, traffic is protected with 128-bit AES encryption, and USB security is protected by centralized access control, allowing for specific operations to be blocked, allowed or recorded as needed. In addition, company officials say the device consumes only 5 watts of power – much less than the typical PC draw. The product’s most visible feature is the Pano Button – the one moveable piece on the device. A touch of the button can be configured by IT or solution providers to orchestrate services at the platform level, including allowing different users to switch to different job functions (for instance, in a medical school setting, one virtual desktop can be configured for medical uses and the other for educational uses). In addition, because the data is segregated from the image, a user can “backtrack” from a corrupted Windows event to a “known good instance” without rebooting the system and losing information. Officials plan to make the product generally available in September for subscription prices beginning at $20 per month. For customers new to virtualization or looking for an entry-level solution, Pano includes an installer that sets up the entire software suite, which includes VMware Server, to deploy the virtualized desktop. For those already familiar with virtualized software, Pano can be installed on top of an existing VMware ESX deployment. “The right model for desktop computing is to have zero software – and hence no pain – at the desktop, and to centralize all software and management in the data center,” says Gault. “And when there is no software on the desktop, a majority of today’s desktop security problems vanish.” ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: DeVice 0907 Patient Access Management • Claim Management • Remittance & Payment Distribution • Patient Billing & Payment e ● Connect: eMDeoN 0907 ● http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=7692 http://www.emdeon.com http://www.emdeon.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=7656 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=7734

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare IT News - September 2007

Contents Alaska Sweep SiCKO Debate Data Exchange Rx EDITH knows Hold That Script IT in the Sun Breathing Easy IT on the Menu Ambulatory EMRs Identity Crisis

Healthcare IT News - September 2007

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