smartphone, go to my cloud-based account and place that PO easily
via my cell phone in less than a minute."
Yes, ordering IOLs while stopped at a light is technically texting
and driving, but Mr. Nieporte says he's also placed after-hours pur-
chase orders on his tablet while in bed. Thanks to cloud comput-
ing, Mr. Nieporte's workday, restricted neither by time nor place,
never ends.
"I'm younger and tech-savvy," says the 29-year-old Mr. Nieporte.
"I want to be able to pull up my laptop late at night and do some
work. I want to use things like phones and tablets to get the job
done, to not be tied to my office chair. Oftentimes, I will have a
need arise in the evenings where I need to access the following
day's schedule or patient information, and I am able to do so
when such information is hosted on the cloud."
Let's say a surgeon needs a backup IOL for tomorrow that's
meant for the anterior chamber, and you don't have it in stock.
You can go online, check quickly and respond. "If we don't have it
in stock," says Mr. Nieporte, "I can text the rep to bring it to the
facility in the morning."
They've been cloud computing at the Michigan Eye Surgery
Center since construction about a year ago. Scheduling and billing
are cloud-based services. So, too, are inventory and implant man-
agement. In real time, Mr. Nieporte can view, manage and edit the
stock and par levels for every item in the facility via the Internet.
He can manage all IOL implants from multiple vendors and scan
implants into consignment, then bill and replace consignment
lenses at the end of each day.
Nimble and responsive
The phrase cloud-based sounds high-techy, but the concept is not
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