title: Economic analysis of cloud-based desktop virtualization implementation at a hospital.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cloud-based desktop virtualization infrastructure (VDI) is known as providing simplified management of application and desktop, efficient management of physical resources, and rapid service deployment, as well as connection to the computer environment at anytime, anywhere with any device. However, the economic validity of investing in the adoption of the system at a hospital has not been established.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study computed the actual investment cost of the hospital-wide VDI implementation at the 910-bed Seoul National University Bundang Hospital in Korea and the resulting effects (i.e., reductions in PC errors and difficulties, application and operating system update time, and account management time). Return on investment (ROI), net present value (NPV), and internal rate of return (IRR) indexes used for corporate investment decision-making were used for the economic analysis of VDI implementation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results of five-year cost-benefit analysis given for 400 Virtual Machines (VMs; i.e., 1,100 users in the case of SNUBH) showed that the break-even point was reached in the fourth year of the investment. At that point, the ROI was 122.6%, the NPV was approximately US$192,000, and the IRR showed an investment validity of 10.8%. From our sensitivity analysis to changing the number of VMs (in terms of number of users), the greater the number of adopted VMs was the more investable the system was.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study confirms that the emerging VDI can have an economic impact on hospital information system (HIS) operation and utilization in a tertiary hospital setting.
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Informatics, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, 166, Gumi-ro, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, South Korea.
authors.forename: Sooyoung
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.forename: Seok
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Taeki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Rong-Min
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Baek
authors.forename: Chang Suk
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Suh
authors.forename: Chin Youb
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Hee
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hwang
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis / Q000379:methods; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational / Q000191:economics; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000191:economics*; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D056910:Republic of Korea; D014584:User-Computer Interface