Rising Use of Mobile Devices in Healthcare

The rise of the smartphone and tablet markets has been the defining technological revolution of the past five years. What was once a niche product for the enterprise has become an ubiquitous consumer product, with nearly 42% of mobile users employing smartphones. How have healthcare institutions taken advantage of all the processing power of smartphones now at our fingertips?

Medical professionals have increasingly been using mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) when interacting with patients. A Healthcare IT news report stated that there were more than 1,000 medical apps available for the iPhone as of February 2010 (one month before the iPad was announced). Apple CEO Tim Cook recently announced that 80% of US hospitals have been using the iPad in some capacity to treat patients. Such uses include bedside care, health record input, and image viewing.

It is widely believed that this is the beginning of a transition to tablets or smartphones as a doctor's primary tool. It should be about about a decade for the transition is complete. The question for the time being is: how can hospital management justify this investment? I will discuss a few possibilities below.

1. Electronic Health Record (EHR) Compatibility. In a previous blog posed, I discussed the necessary conversion of regular print records to electronic ones. One of the main problems created by this necessity is the amount of work required to input new records into the computer. Under the old system, doctor's would take notes into their files and this information would later be input into a digital file. With an iPad acting as the file, the computer input would be already done. Many EHR companies have begun developing apps for this platform that could save many man-hours.

2. Higher Patient Satisfaction. Giving doctors, nurses, or PCAs access to a mobile device could greatly reduce the amount of patient wait-time. In many circumstances, patient treatments depend on the outcome of health tests that are reported by computer. If these results were immediate, patients could be treated at a much faster pace. Long wait time is a common complaint about hospitals and its elimination would help management achieve its goal of satisfying patients.

3. Increased Care through Better Patient Tracking. The portability of these devices creates unlimited possibilities for healthcare adoption. Rather than keeping patients at the hospital to be monitored, doctors can set up an app on a phone to track them remotely.

These are only three possibilities - there are no limits with what can be achieved with this new technology. Creative management will find new ways to boost hospital efficiency and patient satisfaction, increasing the quality of our health care.

See the original articles: "Docs using mobile apps at the point of care," "Steve Jobs' legacy will live on in healthcare,"and "ComScore report finds 42 percent of US mobile users have smartphones"

Challenges to Electronic Health Records

Hospitals have increasingly been making moves towards electronic health records (EHRs). But, as most people can relate, there is nothing simple about adding new technologies into your mix. We all shuffle contacts and documents from several different accounts across tablets, phones, computers and more. Things get complicated quickly.

Healthcare IT News reports that Healthcare organizations have been facing similar difficulties. Hospital CIOs find that EHR integration into existing systems is more difficult than initially perceived, even after costly investments into the software. Just as you find duplicates of the same contact with different information in your address books, hospitals find that EHRs for patients do not always match existing files.

This interoperability problem could lead to legal issues for these organizations in the future. Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals with 'meaningful use' EHRs will receive financial incentive payments until 2015. After that, hospitals without these EHRs will face small financial penalties. It is in hospital management's best interest to sync EHRs with current software in order to receive current incentives and avoid future penalties.

An article from the Healthcare IT Guy website offers some interesting solutions to this EHR fragmentation problem. Persistent Links are the most interesting option. Persistent links identify and match patients by issuing unique identifications to each one. The technology eliminates the fragmentation issue by working across several different hospital databases.

I am not a healthcare technology expert, but these problems and solutions are quite interesting. Hospital management must effecitvely navigate through politics and fast-paced technological change while maintaining the quality of patient care. Proposed solutions will require large investments and managers must be prepared to weigh their benefits.


See original articles:

Healthcare IT News: Interoperability Still a Barrier  

Healthcare IT Guy: Techniques for Matching Patient Records

A Note On My Sources

You might be wondering how I, a business student, have any idea about the technology needs of hospitals. Let me just say: I don't. But, I found some interesting people who do. They also happen to blog about it. 

My Sources: 

1) The Health Care IT Guy:

This blog is written by Sahid, an 'internationally recognized enterprise software analyst' who specializes in Healthcare. He's worked at several healthcare companies in the past, providing him with the necessary experience to blog on the subject. 

2) Healthcare and Technology: 

This blog is written by a Registered Nurse who has had experience in many different technology roles. She offers the perspective of an insider with clinical experience and a tech focus, which should be helpful for my blog. 

3) Healthcare IT News: 

Unlike the previous two blogs, Healthcare IT News is organized as an online newspaper. Multiple authors contribute the blog, offering a more objective point of view when compared with my other two sources.

These three sources should extend sufficient material for me to blog about. I often visit other tech news sites in addition to those listed above. These sites, such as Engadget, BBC Tech News, and NYT Technology, can increase the breadth of the information I will be analyzing.