Flat-panel PC designed for healthcare applications

A family of point-of-care workstations is the first to be designed from the ground up to address healthcare informatics applications in clinical and critical care areas

Planar Systems has introduced the Invitium medical information platform, the first point-of-care family of workstations designed from the ground up to address healthcare informatics applications in clinical and critical care areas.

Setting new standards for safety, durability and ease of use, the Invitium platform is designed explicitly for the healthcare industry to enable timely and complete information management at the point of care - an expanding area of need called healthcare informatics.

With built-in computing power from an Intel Pentium processor, Invitium features a flat-panel display system that sets the standard for brightness, contrast and viewing angle.

All Invitium products are certified to meet American and European medical safety standards, have a modular design for increased flexibility, and can be configured with a variety of networked and wireless I/O options to meet the unique needs of healthcare IT professionals.

"Our customers are demanding equipment to run the clinical software applications that will meet the industry's imperative for patient safety", said Ron Hilton, president of PJ Hilton, a leading hospital systems integrator: "But until the Invitium, there has not been a fully functional clinical computing platform capable of running the software applications while also meeting the rigorous requirements of the hospital environment." Improvement in the management of patient information, especially in clinical and critical care areas, is an emerging trend as healthcare institutions move away from paper record keeping.

The Third Annual Health Record and Usage Study by the US Medical Records Institute reported that 41% of healthcare IT respondents stated that a top priority is to implement workstations that enable order entry, results reporting and decision support applications at the point of care.

"Our strategy for the medical market calls for leveraging Planar's proven expertise in developing solutions and service plans that meet and exceed the requirements of healthcare institutions", says Matt Harris, general manager of Planar's medical business unit: "Invitium products are easier to use, more durable and provide a greater measure of safety than other systems, making them ideal for providing the accurate information that clinicians need at the point-of-care." Medical industry analysts envision computing systems being in place beside most of the 994,000 beds in the United States' 5,900 hospitals by 2010.

In Europe as well, healthcare providers are deploying at the patient bedside information systems that meet stringent requirements in criteria such as fluid resistance, electrical current containment and portability.

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