Download PDF
WellSpan Health optimizes electronic medical record performance and reliability with AppSense
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
- Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
Applicable Industries
- Healthcare & Hospitals
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Predictive Maintenance
- Remote Asset Management
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
WellSpan Health needed to implement and upgrade their inpatient clinical care records system using the Cerner Millennium PowerChart application. However, the application required more processing power and resources than their existing Citrix servers could handle effectively. The performance of the Citrix environment diminished significantly, causing clinicians to be reluctant to migrate to the new application due to slow response times. The IT department explored various ways to enhance performance, including reviewing the Cerner hardware platform and the Citrix environment, but client-side response times were still not reduced to the needed extent. Logon times with Millennium PowerChart ranged from 30 to 90 seconds, which was an average of 20 seconds slower than the Cerner Classic application. This response lag was equivalent to adding 13 full-time employees due to the non-productive logon time.
About The Customer
WellSpan Health is an integrated health system serving over 650,000 people in south central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland. The organization operates more than 65 patient care sites and is staffed by 8,000 physicians, employees, volunteers, board members, and auxiliaries. WellSpan Health is dedicated to providing high-quality healthcare services and has been using the Cerner Classic PowerChart Application as part of its inpatient clinical care record for many years. The organization sought to improve its electronic medical record performance and reliability to better serve its large patient base and support its extensive network of healthcare professionals.
The Solution
WellSpan Health's IT department invested in a new infrastructure, including new HP1280 back-end servers, faster Citrix servers (Dual 3.2 GHz), and upgraded the Windows operating system. Despite these upgrades, performance was still not sufficiently improved. Cerner recommended that WellSpan consider using AppSense Performance Manager. Upon installing AppSense Performance Manager, WellSpan immediately optimized CPU and memory usage, delivering faster and more reliable performance. Logon times were lowered to under 20 seconds, with users gaining access to the Millennium PowerChart Application in just 10-12 seconds. The concurrent user count increased by 100%, with no performance degradation, even under severe testing conditions. Memory savings of up to 300 MB per instance were realized, enabling IT to support more users with less memory. The number of servers required was reduced by 20%, allowing for easier and more cost-effective management of the server farm. Additionally, improved business continuity was achieved with more fail-over servers available due to the blended Citrix farm.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Hospital Inventory Management
The hospital supply chain team is responsible for ensuring that the right medical supplies are readily available to clinicians when and where needed, and to do so in the most efficient manner possible. However, many of the systems and processes in use at the cancer center for supply chain management were not best suited to support these goals. Barcoding technology, a commonly used method for inventory management of medical supplies, is labor intensive, time consuming, does not provide real-time visibility into inventory levels and can be prone to error. Consequently, the lack of accurate and real-time visibility into inventory levels across multiple supply rooms in multiple hospital facilities creates additional inefficiency in the system causing over-ordering, hoarding, and wasted supplies. Other sources of waste and cost were also identified as candidates for improvement. Existing systems and processes did not provide adequate security for high-cost inventory within the hospital, which was another driver of cost. A lack of visibility into expiration dates for supplies resulted in supplies being wasted due to past expiry dates. Storage of supplies was also a key consideration given the location of the cancer center’s facilities in a dense urban setting, where space is always at a premium. In order to address the challenges outlined above, the hospital sought a solution that would provide real-time inventory information with high levels of accuracy, reduce the level of manual effort required and enable data driven decision making to ensure that the right supplies were readily available to clinicians in the right location at the right time.
Case Study
Gas Pipeline Monitoring System for Hospitals
This system integrator focuses on providing centralized gas pipeline monitoring systems for hospitals. The service they provide makes it possible for hospitals to reduce both maintenance and labor costs. Since hospitals may not have an existing network suitable for this type of system, GPRS communication provides an easy and ready-to-use solution for remote, distributed monitoring systems System Requirements - GPRS communication - Seamless connection with SCADA software - Simple, front-end control capability - Expandable I/O channels - Combine AI, DI, and DO channels
Case Study
Driving Digital Transformations for Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices
Diagnostic devices play a vital role in helping to improve healthcare delivery. In fact, an estimated 60 percent of the world’s medical decisions are made with support from in vitrodiagnostics (IVD) solutions, such as those provided by Roche Diagnostics, an industry leader. As the demand for medical diagnostic services grows rapidly in hospitals and clinics across China, so does the market for IVD solutions. In addition, the typically high cost of these diagnostic devices means that comprehensive post-sales services are needed. Wanteed to improve three portions of thr IVD:1. Remotely monitor and manage IVD devices as fixed assets.2. Optimizing device availability with predictive maintenance.3. Recommending the best IVD solution for a customer’s needs.
Case Study
HaemoCloud Global Blood Management System
1) Deliver a connected digital product system to protect and increase the differentiated value of Haemonetics blood and plasma solutions. 2) Improve patient outcomes by increasing the efficiency of blood supply flows. 3) Navigate and satisfy a complex web of global regulatory compliance requirements. 4) Reduce costly and labor-intensive maintenance procedures.
Case Study
Harnessing real-time data to give a holistic picture of patient health
Every day, vast quantities of data are collected about patients as they pass through health service organizations—from operational data such as treatment history and medications to physiological data captured by medical devices. The insights hidden within this treasure trove of data can be used to support more personalized treatments, more accurate diagnosis and more advanced preparative care. But since the information is generated faster than most organizations can consume it, unlocking the power of this big data can be a struggle. This type of predictive approach not only improves patient care—it also helps to reduce costs, because in the healthcare industry, prevention is almost always more cost-effective than treatment. However, collecting, analyzing and presenting these data-streams in a way that clinicians can easily understand can pose a significant technical challenge.
