Wyse Thin Computing is integral to McKesson Asia-Pacific’s innovative work-at-home employment solution; McKesson@Home
Announcement posted by Wyse Technology 19 Jun 2008
Wyse Thin Computing is integral to McKesson Asia-Pacific’s innovative work-at-home employment solution; McKesson@Home.
Wyse Technology, the global leader in thin computing, today announced that McKesson Asia-Pacific, the forerunner in high-quality telephone-based healthcare services, has bucked the nursing-shortage trend by allowing highly trained nurses the option to work from home anywhere in
“McKesson was looking for an innovative way to attract well qualified, experienced nurses to their industry leading call-centre team despite international trends that predicted nursing shortages,” explains Ward Nash, Wyse Sales Director for Asia Pacific. “With nursing shortages expected to impact hospitals, aged care, community care and mental health facilities, McKesson did not want to compete for nurses – they wanted to do things differently.”
In 2004, McKesson began extending its virtual call centre, which gave nurses the option for a lifestyle change away from the enormous pressure of very long hours, physical strain and double-shifts. McKesson@Home allowed nurses to continue working from home without added workplace stress and without compromising other commitments, such as raising a young family.
“The Wyse Thin Client solution was non-confronting and easy to self-install by McKesson@Home nurses who didn’t have an IT expert in their living room,” said Marise Hannaford, McKesson’s IT Director who has worked with Wyse on the project since August 2006. “At the same time, we required seamless functionality and central management at the
Nash sums up McKesson’s challenge: “It would be a contradiction to dangle a ‘lower stress, more flexible working-at-home’ carrot in front of nurses, and then give them a complicated, high-maintenance IT solution to deal with. McKesson’s number one priority was a solution that worked at home as easily as in the IT lab and didn’t require an IT degree – nurses don’t have time to read a manual. They want to plug it in like a toaster and flick the ‘on’ button!”
McKesson replaced 150-200 PCs in three physical call centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth with a thin computing network comprising 200 Wyse Thin Clients (including S90, V90 and V90L running on a Microsoft Windows XPE Operating System). This thin computing solution simultaneously allowed McKesson to expand their growing McKesson@Home team and provided benefits they had not expected.
“As we upgraded the call centres, we experienced a TCO return on our IT support staff rations as well as cost efficiencies in deployment, data security, centralised management and hardware reliability,” says Hannaford who believes the benefits multiply when applied to their growth area: McKesson@Home.
The company also experienced ease and cost savings in couriering Wyse Thin Clients to McKesson@Home employees. They received fewer complaints of system downtime and achieved voluntary compliance to environmental benchmarks. With no moving parts, the Wyse Thin Client was well matched to the home office because it doesn’t break or disable if knocked by a child or pet; it generates no dust, noise or heat in a confined home office; and it ergonomically mounts off the desk and out of sight behind the monitor.
“If we can offer our staff an easy, attractive, life-style employment option such as our virtual call centre McKesson@Home – and deliver on it – we are well on the way to bucking any trend that says it’s ‘virtually’ impossible!” Hannaford concludes.
Wyse PR Contact
Anna Soriano
+61 409 315 012
asoriano@wyse.com
About Wyse Technology
Wyse Technology is the global leader in thin computing. Wyse and its partners deliver the hardware, infrastructure software, and services that comprise thin computing, allowing people to access the information they need using the applications they want, but with better security, manageability, and at a much lower total cost of ownership than a PC. Thin computing allows CIOs and senior IT professionals to reduce costs, manage risk, and deliver access to information. Wyse partners closely with industry leaders Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, and others to achieve this objective. Wyse is headquartered in
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