Select the Right Thin Client to Improve User Experience

Delivering applications virtually, either as published applications or as part of a virtual desktop, is common in healthcare. Healthcare organizations use virtualization to keep patient data secure in the data center while providing consistent access to an electronic-medical-record (EMR) platform across multiple locations and devices.

Organizations that deploy virtualization to access apps or desktops may use thin clients at desks or shared workstations. There is a wide range of thin clients available, and it may not always be clear how to choose the right thin client for a particular user profile. Healthcare IT departments will want to carefully consider thin clients’ abilities to support increasingly advanced workloads, such as video conferencing, voice transcription, and picture archiving and communication system (PACS) access. A best practice before deploying thin clients is to evaluate specific user workflow and application requirements and match selected thin clients to users’ needs.

In order to assess how the computational power of processors affects the productivity of healthcare users filling different roles, Prowess tested a number of devices with virtualized and locally installed applications. Our testing demonstrates that a variety of thin-client devices—with processors of differing computational power—all provide a baseline of functionality. However, in order to maximize user productivity for users requiring advanced workloads, thin-client devices with more powerful processors are the right choice.