What we're doing to increase our availability across our entire processor complex has a direct impact on patient care. Now that we have a VMware farm established, we don't have to run through the time-consuming due diligence for additional hardware and application space when a new project comes in. We're more agile, can turn on demand faster, and see ROI more quickly. Our staff can access patient data on a moment's notice, and therefore offer better quality of care.
After having implemented server virtualization, we found an excellent opportunity to boost capacity with it for our workflow automation projects. The information management staff handles myriad tasks such as printing reports, coordinating the input of outside agencies,, and data entry across all departments, including admissions, billing, emergency department management, lab, medical records, pharmacy, and quality management. The group uses a scripting tool called Boston WorkStation to help automate those time-consuming and repetitive tasks. We're not talking a few scripts here, but rather 400 scripts throughout the organization.
Efficiency comes with a price. As requests for automating tasks poured in, server space dwindled. Eventually, there were 200 scripts on one server, which filled that server's schedule and prevented staff from filling requests for additional scripts. To solve this problem, Christus placed the scripting projects in the virtualized environment and realized an immediate boost to the capacity.
Having a single virtual server per region has enabled Christus to spread out its scripting tasks, making them more manageable. Taking the "many hands makes light work" approach, an agency update that we need to download and disperse into our health information systems across all regions, which would have taken eight hours to complete with a typical standalone script, now takes a fraction of the time when split up among several virtual servers.
One of the most common data entry tasks that the information management department is asked to complete is to script in annual raises. With anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 employees in any one region, such a job would require four to five people over a week of data entry work to accomplish. Using a script, we can accomplish this task in much less time. Often a single computer working approximately 24 hours can script the raises for an entire region's employees, ensuring that the most important resource of a hospital, the staff, is rewarded in a timely manner.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
