The City of Hässleholm uses ThinLinc to live up to the high demands in the IT support for health care services

Lenita Landin
IT manager, Health Care Administration, City of Hässleholm

Patient security, care quality and accessibility within health care can be greatly improved by using different kinds of IT support. Electronic patient journals and drug prescriptions plus digital message handling is today a natural part of everyday health care work. The potential to improve the work and make it more efficient through the use of IT is great. Yet the current IT tools aren't giving the positive effects which would be possible. This is partly due to the fact that IT use in the health care sector varies widely, and partly due to that many of the IT supports used can't communicate with eachother. Access to relevant information is a necessity to ensure good and secure health care.

The demands on the IT support for the health care sector are high. Lenita Landin, IT manager at Health Care Administration, City of Hässleholm, tells how ThinLinc will be used as a solution in Hässleholm. ”In 2004, Health Care Administration made a TCO analysis. The analysis showed that introducing a central HelpDesk and server based computing would be the best alternative. The choice of terminal server solution fell on the ThinLinc software from Cendio AB. ThinLinc provides the best economy for the project”, Lenita says.

”Today only 550 of a total of 1700 people within Health Care Administration have access to computers, the administration is expensive, upgrading and support of the clients is difficult to manage. In the first step we are rebuilding about 120 old fat PCs to thin clients using TLCOS (ThinLinc Client Operating System) which is part of ThinLinc, and then we will successively exchange them for thin terminals. We will use our current Windows Terminal Server for applications, and then we add ThinLinc to achieve a higher security and better load balancing. One of the applications will be the health care work management system Procapita, where we manage analyses, execution, journals and fees in accordance with the law”.

”Many of the new users within the health care aren't used to computers, so we regard it as a big advantage that we can tailor the dektop to the users with ThinLinc: that you only have access to the programs and functions you need, no more, no less”, Lenita points out.

An increased use of IT in health care will be combined with efficient security solutions. These will guarantee that integrity sensitive data about individuals is handled in a secure way by everyone involved in the individual care of the patients. With the help of ThinLinc all patients will receive good and secure care and good service. The health care personnel can devote more time to the patients and adapt the care to each patient's needs.

ThinLinc adheres to the demands and recommendations put forward in the national IT strategy for helath care.