Kindred Healthcare is one of the largest long-term health care providers in the U.S. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, the organization operates 65 acute care hospitals, 285 nursing centers and 30 institutional pharmacies across the country.

The Challenge: Access to Key Patient Information from Any Location

Kindred Healthcare needed to ensure that staff in all of its locations had fast and easy access to a range of client/server and productivity applications. “We were facing issues with application performance, because employees log-on to our system over varying bandwidth connections, including dial-up,” said Rob Rhodes, Technical Consultant, Kindred Healthcare. “Employees, including medical and administrative staff, reported that launching critical applications was extraordinarily slow. Especially in areas such as the nursing center, we wanted to ensure immediate access to key patient information and records.”

In addition, Kindred wanted to centralize its applications in an effort to streamline access and management. “Our goal was to create a ‘virtual desktop’ that would provide users with anywhere, anytime access to information,” said Rhodes. “We needed to centralize our resources in the most efficient way possible — with minimal expenditure in terms of time and money. Wherever possible, we also wanted to leverage existing computing devices.”

Implementing Citrix® Solutions for Remote Office Connectivity

To enable quick, centralized access to key applications, Kindred Healthcare implemented Citrix® Presentation Server for Windows® with Microsoft® Windows 2000 Servers. With Presentation Server, Kindred has enabled over 3,800 users in more than 350 locations to gain Web-based access to a range of business-critical applications, including ProTouch, a custom patient care system, Microsoft Outlook, Kronos, Lotus Notes and SAP, without re-writing code.

Enhanced Productivity and Time Savings

Citrix solutions for remote office connectivity have enabled Kindred Healthcare to manage its sites, especially two-to-four person pulmonary units, in a cost-effective and efficient manner. By centralizing applications, the IT department can easily provide these locations with access to all the key applications and resources.  “We wrapped our remote access strategy around Citrix Presentation Server and its web interface feature,” said Rhodes. “Users, including doctors and nurses, have been able to gain fast, Web-based access to key applications via the Internet from their homes and remote sites, vastly improving productivity.”  

“By helping us save time and improve productivity, Citrix software has also made a direct impact on our bottom line,” remarked Rhodes. “We noticed that our Patient Accounting systems ran faster after we deployed them on Citrix Presentation Server. As a result, the process of closing the books each month has been reduced from six hours to a few minutes. We’ve also reduced our Accounts Receivable days each month by one.”

The company has also run a successful pilot with Citrix Presentation Server to submit medical claims electronically. “The process has not only been more accurate, but has also ensured that we get paid quickly,” said Rhodes. “We’re rolling out this claim system to all of our hospitals.”

In addition, the ability to run any application on any device with Citrix software has allowed Kindred to extend the life of existing IT hardware. “With Citrix Presentation Server, we can run high-end applications with low-end devices,” noted Rhodes.  Features like the management console, load manager and web interface extend and enhance the company’s Windows 2000 Server implementation.  

“Citrix solutions have prepared us for the future,” said Rhodes. “If we’re in an acquisition mode, we can easily set up new users because many of our applications are centralized. In addition, the secure, centralized access we have with Citrix solutions has provided us with a firm foundation for disaster recovery and HIPAA compliance.”

© 2003 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix® is a registered trademark or trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Microsoft® and Windows® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.