Healthcare suppliers who work with sufferers every single day know that there’s nothing extra vital than getting them the therapy and care they want. Information is vital to this work, as correct and well timed affected person knowledge could be key to creating the fitting healthcare selections. Safety and resiliency are essential to healthcare expertise: affected person knowledge and the functions utilized in healthcare settings should be stored safe and accessed solely by approved personnel. Holding gadgets up and dealing as anticipated is particularly vital when affected person care is concerned.
Hospitals and medical services have lengthy relied on conventional digital desktop infrastructure (VDI) options to offer workers entry to vital data and instruments throughout services and areas, in addition to safeguard affected person, worker, and company knowledge. VDI may help healthcare organizations to higher handle their IT infrastructure, securely increase entry to digital instruments and knowledge, and cut back prices. Organizations in search of VDI options can flip to Azure Digital Desktop to assist handle and keep their IT wants.
For healthcare organizations in search of simplicity and to maneuver past conventional VDI, Home windows 365 is a cloud-based service that organizations can use to create Cloud PCs to your staff, contractors, or different customers. Home windows 365 permits IT admins to shortly and simply deploy Cloud PCs and to handle Cloud PCs alongside bodily PCs inside Microsoft Intune. Home windows 365 supplies the productiveness, safety, and collaboration advantages of Microsoft 365.
As healthcare suppliers, pharmaceutical firms, life sciences organizations, and extra look to the longer term, Home windows Cloud options from Microsoft present virtualization options with the flexibleness, scalability, and safety of Azure Digital Desktop and Home windows 365.
Supporting healthcare and medical workloads with Azure Digital Desktop
Organizations in search of virtualization choices have flexibility and management with Azure Digital Desktop. It supplies a safe, cost-effective strategy to help distant desktops and experiences from wherever, throughout a wide range of endpoints. Organizations all through the healthcare business use Azure Digital Desktop to entry medical and productiveness functions and hosted desktops after they want them. Azure Digital Desktop is managed through the Microsoft Azure portal, permitting IT admins to create and handle a customized desktop virtualization setting to fulfill their organizations’ wants.

Among the many core enterprise functions for healthcare suppliers are digital well being information (EHR). One of many high EHR options utilized by healthcare suppliers worldwide is Epic. Microsoft and Epic are working intently with healthcare organizations which might be inquisitive about being early adopters of operating Epic Hyperdrive on Azure Digital Desktop. We’re utilizing suggestions from these early manufacturing pilots to prioritize our product improvement roadmap and have assembled the rising greatest practices right into a draft reference structure. For more information and to observe future progress, please see the Azure Digital Desktop Exploratory Platform Abstract on Epic’s UserWeb (login required).
Microsoft associate Imprivata additionally introduced help for Azure Digital Desktop on Home windows endpoints in Digital Kiosk and Shared Kiosk modes in November 2024, increasing its help past Azure Digital Desktop on Linux gadgets. Imprivata options are sometimes utilized by healthcare organizations to help “Faucet and Go” badging capabilities with Azure Digital Desktop digital machines (VMs), so this growth to Home windows endpoints offers clients extra choices to configure their IT infrastructure to fulfill the wants of the healthcare office.
Azure Digital Desktop is designed with flexibility and safety in thoughts, with a lot of elements for patrons to configure and implement in a method that meets their IT necessities. Further latest updates embrace:
- Microsoft Intune Distant Assistance is increasing help past single session to additionally embrace the Azure Digital Desktop multi-session functionality, a big milestone for IT admins managing shared digital environments.
- Organizations have extra configuration choices with Azure Digital Desktop for Azure Native (previously Azure Stack HCI). Azure Native helps organizations meet efficiency or knowledge locality wants, or help areas with poor connectivity to the Azure public cloud, by offering session hosts nearer to their location or by extending deployment choices to on-premises infrastructure. See Superior Micro Gadgets’ (AMD’s) latest publishing of outcomes of its Azure Digital Desktop for Azure Native efficiency testing.
- Different updates embrace session host configuration and replace, dynamic autoscaling, and Cell Software Administration (MAM) help
We proceed to innovate and construct Azure Digital Desktop to fulfill the wants of organizations in healthcare. Go to the “What’s new in Azure Digital Desktop?” web page to be taught extra.
Desktops within the cloud with Home windows 365
Some healthcare organizations could also be in search of desktop virtualization choices designed for straightforward deployment and administration with out vital VDI experience or funding wanted. Home windows 365 is the Microsoft software program as a service (SaaS) answer that gives finish customers with a well-recognized, customized expertise of Home windows from wherever, on any machine. It turns into staff’ devoted laptop within the cloud, retaining their knowledge, functions, and settings. Home windows 365 Cloud PCs could be deployed and managed by the tip person computing group alongside bodily PCs utilizing Intune.
For healthcare organizations, a number of the most typical use instances Cloud PCs are used for embrace healthcare directors, pharmacy and life science staff, call-center staff, and extra. Home windows 365 additionally supplies flexibility for IT groups to shortly deploy and scale up or down the digital desktops as wanted, making it an awesome choice for part-time or seasonal staff, or short-term contractors. Home windows 365 Enterprise supplies devoted and customized Cloud PCs to staff, enabling them to entry their desktop within the Microsoft Cloud from any machine, 24/7.
Current releases in Home windows 365 provide much more choices for healthcare organizations trying to increase entry and construct resiliency for his or her group:
- For organizations trying to increase entry to Cloud PCs throughout a larger variety of staff, Home windows 365 Frontline permits one license to be shared by a number of customers, one after the other, primarily based on how the Cloud PCs are configured. In devoted mode, three customers will every have entry to a customized Cloud PC for use throughout their shifts or working hours. Within the shared mode, now typically obtainable, a Frontline Cloud PC could be shared amongst a gaggle of customers on an intermittent foundation, with a non-personalized expertise. To be taught extra about Frontline plans, go to the Study web page.
- Some groups or people require extra backup, knowledge resiliency, or catastrophe restoration choices. Along with the Home windows 365 Cross-region Catastrophe Restoration add-on, Microsoft simply launched Home windows 365 Catastrophe Restoration Plus. This new add-on will present fast restoration instances and totally reserved capability, unbiased of availability, serving to to make sure quick and dependable restoration in an alternate area. This may be notably vital for healthcare organizations with extra regulatory or enterprise necessities, together with wants for larger geographic range, restore time targets, and pre-allocated capability. To learn extra about Home windows 365 Catastrophe Restoration Plus, please go to the weblog announcement.
To be taught extra concerning the options and capabilities inside Home windows 365, please go to What’s new in Home windows 365.
Home windows 365 and Azure Digital Desktop assist organizations improve productiveness, keep safe, and cut back prices
Organizations around the globe are seeing the advantages of adopting Home windows Cloud options. For a lot of healthcare organizations, the main target is on how deploying these options can enhance productiveness, decrease IT prices, and strengthen safety in a scalable and balanced strategy.
The New Know-how: The Projected Complete Financial Affect™ of Home windows 365 and Azure Digital Desktop, a 2025 examine carried out by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Microsoft to evaluate the advantages organizations can obtain with Home windows 365 and Azure Digital Desktop, discovered a projected return on funding (ROI) starting from 94% to 217%, with a internet current worth (NPV) between USD3.2 million and USD7.4 million over three years for a composite group with 2,000 staff. The examine additionally decided that staff and contractors utilizing Home windows 365 and Azure Digital Desktop save 6 to 12 minutes per day from prevented outages and latency in comparison with their earlier environments. This interprets to vital productiveness features, permitting healthcare organizations to optimize the effectivity of their workforce.
To discover extra insights, learn the Complete Financial Affect™ examine carried out by Forrester Consulting.
Study extra about empowering your healthcare groups with Home windows Cloud options
Microsoft is dedicated to listening to our clients in healthcare and innovating to fulfill their wants. Organizations like Baptist Well being are seeing value and time financial savings by transferring their medical workloads onto Azure Digital Desktop. Get related by becoming a member of the Azure Digital Desktop, Home windows 365, or Microsoft Intune Tech Communities.
Involved in studying extra about Home windows 365 and Azure Digital Desktop? Go to the Home windows 365 and Azure Digital Desktop pages.
*Epic is a trademark of Epic Programs company.