Doctors and nurses at Seattle Children's Hospital are making use of zero-client devices (also known as ultra-thin clients) to pull up patients' data at their bedsides, and meanwhile the devices are saving the hospital about $400,000 in energy costs a year, reports Matt Hamblen at Computerworld.

Seattle Children's started replacing desktop computers with zero clients throughout the hospital a year ago. The devices are 7 watt while the desktops are 70 watt. Those that are connected to a wireless LAN give clinicians quick access to patient databases.

"They can walk into a patient's room and within seconds access all their information--it's much more efficient and provides more time for patient and provider information," said Wes Wright, chief technology officer at the hospital.  

Although the upgrade is proving beneficial to clinicians, patients and the power bill, it wasn't simple. "It takes a lot of tree work to get it right," Wright said. "You can't just buy the software and stand up and make it go. There was a lot of workflow needed before the virtual desktop [was implemented]. Thankfully, we still need people for these projects."

For more:
- see Matt Hamblen's article at Computerworld

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