Healthcare Improved Through Mobile Technology

It’s no secret that technology is helping increase the quality of the healthcare system in the US. A clear example of this is mobile technology. Mobile healthcare technology has become standard in many hospitals and care facilities as devices and applications help clinicians and patients track and recall data related to individual patient care.

Many hospitals are so large that just navigating their corridors can be a daunting task. To assist with this, internal GPS are already commonly used by staff. Through the GPS and other mobile location devices, healthcare personnel keep tabs on patients at every point of care, avoiding duplicate tests or wrong patients. Monitoring patient flow using mobile-location based technologies will aid in improving the hospital’s efficiency and develop logistics for both staff and patients.

The devices nowadays have become more advance and smaller, making it more convenient for the user. Medical devices also are getting smaller and going wireless, allowing providers to bring care to patients in their home or community, rather than requiring patients to repeatedly go back to clinical offices for tests. These devices can be used by patients at home to check their things like blood pressure and send the information to their care provider in real-time. They need not to go back to the hospital for check-up avoiding stress and saving money. The devices will monitor their status which will directly send information to the hospital.

Permitting patients access to their data through patient portals makes them aware of their health status while away from the hospital, giving the patient more comfort and less trauma. It is improving patient engagement and care, as patients find and fill in gaps in their health records that clinicians may have missed. Upgrading the health care system through introduction of new technology saves more lives and promotes patient awareness of their health care.

Mobile Devices in Patient Care

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.