IUanyWare helps IU School of Dentistry access their portals . . anywhere

A trip to the dentist hasn’t changed much in the last 20, or even 50 years. There’s cleaning, flossing, polishing, rinsing–lots more interaction with metal implements than with high-tech software. But, for students at Indiana University’s School of Dentistry (IUSD) at IUPUI, a major part of their education involves exactly that: software.

Though IUSD’s programs still focus on essentials like patient care, diagnosis, treatment, and procedures, dentistry students must now learn how to use software, such as axiUm Dental Software, and integrate it into their clinical practice. A number of needs arose around software usage at the school. For instance, students and faculty need frequent access to elements of IU’s software and systems, often on their own laptops and devices. The school also needed documentation to support Compliance Office audits, which ensure adherence to legal, ethical, and professional standards. The sensitive nature of clinical data also demands high security, further complicating the requirements for potential solutions. Enter IUanyWare!

IUanyWare is a client virtualization (CV) service available to all IU students, faculty, and staff that offers access to IU-licensed software through a web browser or mobile application. Virtualization makes centralized software available to multiple users at the same time, in any geographic location, and without the complications of installing it locally. Upon logging in, all users see the same interface, regardless of their own operating systems. Stephanie Cox, Manager of Virtualization Services at IU, worked with Craig Eberhardt, the Clinic Systems Manager of IUSD, to develop a solution with the consistency and flexibility IUSD needed. Cox began by meeting with Eberhardt and others at the school to gain a general sense of their process and operations, and found the school needed a reliable terminal server environment that could keep up with the many software updates mandated by IUSD’s software vendors. It also needed a secure mobile solution that would provide students with access to the software suite from their own laptops and mobile devices. This led to IUanyWare creating its first, and still its largest, entity for IUSD.

The process of accessing the dental clinic software through IUanyWare is user-friendly and secure, with all data points remaining on the backend servers in the IUB DataCenter. Cox and her team also integrated scanners and printers into the virtualized software, adding to the seamless nature of the solution without requiring users to go to the dental clinic on campus. Over 600 students and faculty members use IUanyWare each day, and they often stay logged in nearly 24 hours per day. With clinicians using it to treat patients and view images, it’s key that the system remain available, and IUanyWare offers nearly 99% uptime, providing a responsive, stable, secure platform for this custom unit. Eberhardt calls IUanyWare “a game changer” and applauds it for making his job “as an IT professional so much easier.” IUSD’s Fritts Clinical Care Center in Indianapolis opened in March of 2018; Cox likes to think that “the platform providing this service is just as state-of-the-art as the new dental building.”