Craig Dunwoody, Presenter: Reseller, VMware, Inc Reseller, Nutanix, Inc

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions have been available for many years, but recent technological improvements have now made VDI truly compelling to radiology organizations. 

Radiology professionals are facing significant challenges integrating an increasingly complex environment of different devices, operating systems, and applications.  Radiology professionals use multiple devices throught their day, resulting in an inconsistent desktop experience.  Users must contend with multiple logins, varying hardware configurations, and limited tablet access options.  The cost of managing and securing the desktop environment is soaring.  Maintaining uptime is critical, but is difficult to achieve, especially in large organizations, when hardware or software refreshes are taking place. 

In this paper, I will evaluate these challenges and present a strategy that addresses them.  A number of virtualization strategies can support the needs of end users, while making it easier for IT staff to manage and secure appliications and desktop environments.  I will evaluate some of the most prominent PACS and RIS applications and the workflows associated with using these tools in the radiology environment.  I will then describe use cases for deploying these strategies to workstations and discuss the benefits that are provided to different target users.

Managing and securing the high-end workstations with Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) that support diagnostic medical imaging is becoming increasingly challenging, as application and operating system changes are increasingly difficult to implement for IT staff and end-users.  The rise of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) means that multiples devices with different operating systems must be integrated, and the growth of healthcare organizations means that institutions often must share information and images across multiple sites.  There are a number of virtualization strategies that can facilitate diagnostic processing time and quality, by helping radiologists reduce downtimes for their workstations, improving the consistency of the user experience, improving remote access, and empowering the use of multiple devices including tablets. 

Dunwoody, C, Always on Virtualization: A Dramatic Improvement for PACS/RIS Applications and Desktops.  Radiological Society of North America 2013 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, December 1 - December 6, 2013 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2013/13011665.html