HC3i is China’s first professional network platform focusing on medical information, Internet healthcare, and mobile healthcare.
[IT Infrastructure Construction in New Era Hospitals]
IT Virtualization Solves Redundant Hardware Issues
During the recently concluded “12th Five-Year Plan,” the state paid special attention to the medical health information standard system, launching standard research and application. Based on this, during the “13th Five-Year Plan,” the National Health and Family Planning Commission’s Statistical Information Center proposed a top-level design plan of “46312” for medical and health information construction, focusing on strengthening system construction, talent development, investment mechanism construction, especially in legal regulations and security privacy protection. Meng Qun, Director of the Statistical Information Center of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, stated that the plan for medical information construction during the “13th Five-Year Plan” includes four points: first, to broaden the scope, expand pilot programs, strengthen application, and narrow regional gaps; second, to promote depth, serve the public, and popularize health cards for residents; third, to enhance precision, further promote data mining and application, and advance refined management; fourth, to increase efforts, coordinate organizational leadership, and strengthen effect monitoring and evaluation.
In response, various regions have proposed their own plans based on the National Health and Family Planning Commission’s overall arrangements and local conditions. Fan Qiyong, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission’s Information Center, explained that the “2321 Plan” will be implemented in the planning of hospital informatization in Shanghai during the “13th Five-Year Plan.” The “3” refers to promoting the construction of three major application systems. The first type of application is business productivity systems; the second is management systems, transforming result management into process management, raising management to a certain level; the third is intelligent software systems, mainly achieving regulatory control management. For many hospitals, meeting the third type of demand requires leveraging IT virtualization to liberate hospital management systems from traditional redundant hardware, solving more problems with less investment.
As a national demonstration unit for informatization of traditional Chinese medicine hospitals under the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Longhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine is a national demonstration hospital with distinct traditional Chinese medicine characteristics and advantages, and is also one of the earliest established clinical bases for traditional Chinese medicine in the country. Longhua Hospital is not only a pioneer in medical research and practice but also an active explorer in the construction of digital hospitals and IT virtualization.
1
Virtualization Revolutionizes Hospital Operation and Maintenance Models
According to statistics, for every 10 yuan invested in PC hardware by hospitals, subsequent operation and maintenance expenses will exceed 30 yuan, reaching as high as three times. From the perspective of business value, desktop operation and maintenance does not create direct value for organizational business development and does not enhance productivity; the greater the investment in this area, the more waste occurs.
The traditional hospital procurement model involves bulk purchasing of PCs, followed by system imaging and deployment for all users. Throughout the entire PC lifecycle, there will constantly be burdensome and valueless tasks arising from user damage, patch upgrades, software updates, etc. Moreover, this process must be repeated every three to four years.
Additionally, there are security risks; the value of information data for hospitals is increasing, and under the traditional model, the decentralized management of information data complicates the protection mechanism for information security: data stored locally is prone to leakage incidents, while decentralized data storage is difficult to back up uniformly, facing risks of data loss. As the importance and quantity of information data continues to grow, IT virtualization processing becomes essential.
Ultimately, the advancement of technology must serve the needs of users. The development of virtualization has further transformed and innovated traditional procurement models and the user experience for doctors. Doctors can build their personal virtual desktops in minutes without the help of IT operations personnel, enhancing their efficiency. For IT administrators, all desktop management tasks can be unified in a data center, allowing each person to easily maintain over 1,000 terminal devices, significantly reducing terminal maintenance workload and labor support costs.
“The new office model has given rise to three major demands: simplified management, data security, and mobile office. To address the challenges of desktop operations and better meet customer needs, the replacement of traditional PCs with ‘thin clients + cloud desktops’ is imperative.”
2
Integrated ‘Desktop Cloud’ Solutions Address Redundant Demands
Based on the medical business situation faced by Longhua Hospital, including the increasing number of client devices and the inability of existing manpower to provide good management; the requirements for medical data security are becoming increasingly stringent, and ordinary PC management is inadequate to address data leakage;
The rapid evolution of medical applications, the challenges of mobile healthcare and access to various client devices, Director Dong Liang stated, “Professional matters should be entrusted to professionals (and companies) to better accelerate the pace of informatization construction and achieve the goal of ‘patient-centered’ digital hospital construction as soon as possible.”
DELL PowerEdge M620 Blade Server
DELL, as a provider of comprehensive medical informatization solutions, has tailored an integrated solution called “Desktop Cloud” for Longhua Hospital. It uses DELL PowerEdge M620 blade servers as virtual hosts, equipped with intel® Xeon® chips, connecting to EQL storage through MXL, and providing network uplink, meeting the client’s needs for building a desktop virtualization platform. This solution combines Citrix Xen Desktop and Xen App, integrating the advantages of desktop virtualization technology with hardware, software, services, and support, enhancing data security and collaboration, improving clinical efficiency, and boosting IT staff productivity, thereby supporting the digital development of hospitals from multiple angles.
Diagram of the “Desktop Cloud” solution
3
Strengthening Information Data Protection, Achieving Speed and Security
Through the “Desktop Cloud” integrated solution provided by DELL, information is stored in the data center rather than on terminals, effectively achieving low-cost virus protection and data recovery, allowing users to conveniently deliver information, implementing multi-factor authentication, eliminating the tendency to use generic login names, and strengthening control over security performance. This not only improves the work efficiency of doctors but also further increases bed turnover rates, ultimately benefiting patients.
4
Mutual Enhancement: Clinical Efficiency and System Management Go Hand in Hand
“Desktop Cloud” provides single sign-on, quick login, and other forms, with applications automatically starting, reducing wait times, and featuring session transfer, follow-me printing, and shared workstations to provide users with a comprehensive and convenient working platform that is easy to use. Moreover, the use of “Desktop Cloud” facilitates diagnosis beyond the hospital, enabling bidirectional referrals between hospitals, and interconnectivity and sharing of information data.
In the use of IT virtualization solutions, not only has user work limitations been lifted, but the efficiency of IT administrators has also been further enhanced. They can dynamically provision user applications, data, and personalized settings; manage images and application patches; reduce technical support calls; achieve standardization and simplification, reduce downtime, and accelerate resolution speeds.
Diagram of the “Desktop Cloud” solution
The “Desktop Cloud” solution provided by DELL optimizes the IT system, effectively achieving scientific optimization of the IT system, efficient integration of application systems, reasonable simplification of maintenance management, and strict control of resource consumption, elevating the overall IT level of hospitals to a higher level and laying the foundation for the sustainable development of hospital informatization.
Through years of diversified development in hospital informatization to the current virtualization construction, virtualization has broken the shackles of traditional hardware redundancy, rescuing doctors from complex office dilemmas, solely to better serve patients in diagnosis and treatment. Only when hardware and software devices, service models, and solutions are genuinely centered around actual needs and patients can virtualization realize its true meaning.
5
The Path of IT Virtualization Construction at Longhua Hospital
“Applications arise from needs. The reason for choosing to combine new information technologies with medical services and vigorously promote the deepening of IT virtualization at Longhua Hospital is that we have seen the actual needs of clinical medical staff for various application devices. Practice has proven that IT virtualization not only changes the daily diagnosis and treatment forms but also transforms the traditional concepts of healthcare workers and enhances actual work efficiency.”
—— Dong Liang, Director of the Information Center at Longhua Hospital
After years of accumulation of experience in hospital digital construction, in response to the trend of digital construction in hospitals during the “13th Five-Year Plan,” Director Dong Liang elaborated on three major development directions for the industry in the future. First, develop informatization construction in community centers. Better implement the national hierarchical diagnosis and treatment policy, making healthcare regionalized and integrated; second, strengthen the construction of information center personnel. Introduce high-end talents in medical informatization, increasing talent reserves to better assist medical advancement; third, improve the information security guarantee system. While vigorously promoting informatization development, effectively ensure information security. Solidify the foundation of network and information security, strengthen the construction of trust systems and password guarantees, and enhance the ability to supervise network and information security. Longhua Hospital, in its “digitalization” construction, combines its hospital characteristics and follows national policy guidelines to vigorously build hospital digitalization. From the internal perspective of the hospital, Longhua Hospital’s IT virtualization construction has utilized DELL’s solutions, greatly improving data security and technically reducing the risk of medical data leakage. It has lowered the maintenance costs of client devices, simplified desktop system maintenance and deployment work. Centralized data storage has simplified system data backup and disaster recovery work. It has provided a foundational platform for mobile healthcare and multi-device access, facilitating the overall completion of the best “digital virtualization” construction in the hospital, allowing all hardware and software devices in the hospital to achieve the best matching state. From the external perspective of the hospital, leveraging mobile Internet models to create a new type of “digital hospital” in the new era.
* Dell Statement Details
Dell’s regular terms and conditions apply and are available online or upon request. Dell strives to identify pricing errors or other mistakes, but some errors may occur due to our oversight. Dell reserves the right not to accept any orders containing erroneous information. Images are for reference only. Ultrabook, Celeron Inside, Core Inside, Intel, Intel Identity, Intel Turbo, Intel Atom Inside, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Identity, Intel Jumpstart, Intel Boost, Itanium Inside, Pentium Inside, vPro Inside, Xeon, and Xeon Phi are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. or other countries. Other trademarks or product names mentioned in this document refer to the respective organizations or their products. Dell does not own rights to other organizations’ trademarks and product names. Copyright: ©2014 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. For more information, please visit: http://www1.ap.Dell.com/content/topic.aspx/ap/policy/zh/cn/technotes_cn?c=cn&l=zh&s=dhs
Source: China Digital Healthcare Network/Sun Yang
Provider of Comprehensive Digital Healthcare Solutions | www.hc3i.cn
(Long press to recognize the QR code in the image)