Novell was really stretched last week with a major presence at both LinuxWorld on the East Coast and the RSA Conference on the West Coast. Most major announcements were released simultaneously at both shows, and most got more attention at LinuxWorld because, well, Jack Messman and crew are the darlings of the fans of the open source operating system. But there was one announcement that stood out, at least to me, because it's a product I've hoped for and users have asked for: It's the Novell Clinical Workstation, and it promises to not only make life easier for the users but make a longer life possible for many people.

If you've ever been in the hospital, you're probably familiar with the clipboard attached to the bottom of the bed containing every detail of your condition, diagnosis, prognosis, vital signs and other relevant information. If you've ever tried to read one, you found out why doctors have a reputation for poor handwriting. More than one patient has received the wrong medication or treatments because something on the chart was read wrong. For a long time, what hospital IT managers have advocated was a tablet-like computer interface to the hospital's central records so that accurate, readable information was always available.

Privacy was the major drawback to implementing this, and regulatory issues such as those in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act impose draconian penalties for violating privacy. Strong passwords don't work because the doctors and nurses can't be bothered to wait to log on at every bed they visit (and always forget to log out,it seems). In practice, people would share passwords, leave accounts logged on and in many ways violate every tenet of security the network manager tried to implement.

Enter Novell Clinical Workstation, which uses Novell eDirectory-enabled technology to utilize biometric authentication, and the use of tokens such as proximity cards to quickly and efficiently log on users - and just as efficiently log them out when they move on.

There's a lot more to it, of course - see www.novell.com/healthcare for more details - but to finally see something I've hoped for come to fruition from a company that I know can handle the technology well, that's a really great feeling. Now if only new Marketing Vice President Bill Hewitt (he come over from PeopleSoft) can get the word out to those who need to know.