Provisioning for Healthcare: Tech Solutions to Manage Workflow
by Natalie Schlueter
Providing solutions and critical care to patients in all settings is the most valuable part of any healthcare environment. Whether it be in an Intensive Care Unit, or an assisted living home, technology is at the forefront of patients’ care and well-being.
Not only does powerful technology assist doctors, nurses, and other clerical staff, it also is the bridge between good and great care. While hospital staff use tech to facilitate speciality care to each patient, technology can also be used by the patients to see their loved ones and stay entertained while in their temporary, or permanent, home.
What technology can provide the assistance needed to utilize devices in this way? Provisioning.
Charging solutions with sync and provisioning abilities allows all healthcare environments to thrive in tech-enhanced settings.
What is provisioning?
Provisioning is a streamlined technology that automates updates, data transfers, and complete reboots of devices whenever the used device is placed into the charging station or cart.
In other words, provisioning refers to the steps required to manage access to data and resources, and make them available to users and systems.
Provisioning can provide seamless, individualized care for each patient with the reliability and trust that all data will be stored, managed and backed up on a daily, if not hourly, basis. After a device has been utilized for a specific person’s care, the staff can then insert the device back into the charging, syncing and provisioning solution which will then wipe the device for a clean use the next time.
Provisioning can assist in the management of multiple devices from multiple locations and provides an all-in-one IT solution for a hands-free experience.
How can provisioning assist you and your environment?
Provisioning is the all-in-one solution for mission-critical environments where technology is center stage.
Provisioning helps mitigate Tier one IT tech support tickets with a fleet of 250 devices or more. This type of solution supports minimal IT tech support on a day-to-day basis, therefore allowing IT teams to focus on complex workflows, and spend time future proofing technology.
Charging solutions with integrated provisioning technology, like the PowerSync Pro™ 2nd Generation, ultimately provides a device management strategy with:
- The ability to charge, provision, and re-provision a shared pool of iOS or iPadOS devices.
- A best-in-class hardware experience for simplifying the management of a large pool of iPhones, iPads, or iPad minis.
- A combined experience with Apple Provisioning Utility (APU), or GroundControl for lowering support costs, and to automate provisioning
- A growth mindset with the ability to daisy-chain up to three trays, or 40 devices with one Mac mini.
If your environment uses Apple devices for its mission-critical workflow, provisioning can assist in mitigating issues and providing solutions to ensure a safe charge, synced data, and provisioned devices each day.
Ultimately, provisioning can support complex workflows for a large fleet of devices in fast-paced environments with many users.
How can patients benefit from provisioned devices?
Consider the year 2020: patients were not able to communicate with their loved ones due to the pandemic. They could only see them through the window (if they were lucky enough to be close to the floor level). This situation continues on into today and probably for the foreseeable future.
Nursing homes and assisted living facilities are relied upon to provide exceptional care to their patients. This care not only includes their physical well being, but also the mental health of their patients as well.
It is hard to maintain mental health when visitors are limited or not allowed in some situations. Providing iPads, or iPad mini’s for patient use is critical in these types of environments.
It can be difficult to navigate multiple devices for patient use in a single day if provisioning solutions are not implemented. Instead of an IT department having to constantly walk back and forth between different stations to update, and wipe devices after a patient’s use, the nurses, or other care staff, can simply take the device from the patient, insert it into a provisioning solution hub and wait for the device to be ready for use again.
This solution can not only help patients see their family members by utilizing the video chat options on tablets, but it can provide them with entertainment that they might not otherwise have had.
A provisioning solution can offer an all-around individualized experience for patients on a daily basis.
How does provisioning work?
Provisioning takes a standard charging and syncing solution and adds the ability to manage data by loading and unloading data from the device utilizing GroundControl or Apple Provisioning Utility (APU).
Apple Provisioning Utility (APU) is a macOS utility that helps manage large-scale workflows on a large fleet of devices. This utility will allow for employees to enter their unit into the charging station and APU will wipe the data from the device and store it in a Mac mini with other usages and softwares in it. With APU the device will be wiped for the next employee to take the device out of the slot and start fresh.
GroundControl allows for the same thing to happen, just without the limit of users, administrators or workflows.
How do you know if your environment is right for a provisioning utility?
Here are five questions to ask when considering a provisioning solution with ability to integrate APU or GroundControl:
- Will I need to consistently wipe and re-update complex workflows with 250 employees that need to use the devices?
- Do my current devices support APU or GroundControl?
- Do I need a provisioning utility?
- How many workflows will I be managing? Do I need help managing these workflows?
- Will I need to expand my MDM strategy to accelerate quickly due to unforeseen circumstances?
What solution suits your strategy?
At Bretford, there are two different provisioning solutions that we have. These solutions can expand with your Mobile Device Management (MDM) strategy as they can be daisy-chained together to provision and manage up to 40 devices on a single Mac mini.
These solutions can also be used as single unit charging hubs or stations for a small footprint, open-concept solution or can be added to cabinets or carts to provide a secure and mobile charge with all devices in one place.
PowerSync Pro™ Smart Hub: This solution provides a best-in-class software experience with self-contained provisioning. The first generation of this product is a basic, yet powerful solution to add to any MDM strategy. With cost in mind, the PowerSync Pro™ Smart Hub can accelerate workflow and save money while doing so.
PowerSync Pro™ 2nd Generation: A best-in-class experience just got better. The 2nd generation of the PowerSync Pro™ Smart Hub provides a sleeker, more compact solution that still comfortably holds all of the essentials like devices and Mac mini. The 2nd generation provides a passthrough to connect other peripheral devices to a Mac mini that are not directly connected or stored in the hub.
Contact Bretford
Contact Bretford at (800) 521-9614 to talk to a sales representative today. Consider how you can upgrade your device management strategy to assist your doctors, nurses, and clerical staff, as well as your patients, with the PowerSync Pro™ Smart Hub solution.
