Many physicians operating in medical centers use mobile devices in patient care, according to individual reviews by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and Spyglass Consulting Group, MobiHealthNews reviews. For the second annual HIMSS Mobile Technological advancement Study, which was provided by Qualcomm Life, scientists asked 180 IT experts operating at medical care facilities. The review discovered that about half of interviewed IT experts believe that the use of mobile technology will significantly affect patient care. It also discovered that:
- 45% of participants said physicians at their company use mobile devices to gather information at a patient’s room, up from 30% last year;
- 38% said physicians use mobile devices to read bar codes, up from 23% last year;
- 34% said physicians monitor information from mobile devices, up from 27% last season; and
- 27% said physicians use the camera on their cell phone to capture individual information, up from 13% last season.
About 25% of participants said that all individual information taken by clinicians’ mobile devices are incorporated with the individual’s electronic health record. About three-quarters of interviewed IT experts said they expect their company to flourish its use of mobile health gadgets in the future, with tablets seeing the greatest growth forecasts. In related news, an individual review from Spyglass Consulting Group discovered that 69% of interviewed hospital nursing staff said they use their mobile devices for personal and clinical emails while on the job. The review also discovered that: 96% of interviewed nursing staff said that first generation tablets did not work well for bedside nursing because of durability concerns, information entry limitations and other issues and 25% said they were disappointed with the quality and reliability of their facility’s wireless network.