By Natalie Slodowy, IntelliSuite Technologies
Striking the delicate balance between urgency and discretion, immediate response and accurate care, is, and always has been, one of medicine’s most challenging obstacles. The integration of new technologies has vastly affected this balance and is moving medicine forward in ways previously unimagined. Among others, it’s the expanded capabilities provided by wireless and mobile healthcare infrastructures that are leading the way in these advances toward achieving that very balance.
Computers, practice management systems, billing systems, and other basic IT has been in place in doctor’s offices and hospitals for years. New technologies are constantly being added; EHRs, PACS, and other more specified systems, but all of these technologies are have—up until recently— been limited by their physical location and accessibility.
According to the report, "Telecommunications, IT, and Healthcare: Wireless Networks, Digital Healthcare and the Transformation of US Healthcare 2006-2011," much of the sky-high costs within the current system are due to low proximity of the patient to the provider as well as to the antiquated systems used to manage records and exchange information.
Each minute a provider spends tied to a workstation or imaging device is a potentially vital minute that could be better spent by the patient’s side. Also, the quickly-changing information held in a medical record or test result often isn’t relayed effectively enough to all vital parties involved. This, as research shows, of course affects both the quality of care and costs billions of dollars in mistakes and oversights.
Wireless networks, mobile products, and various forms of remote access are the apparent cure to the problem of inert information. And more importantly, these solutions extend far beyond a laptop on a cart or email capability on a cell phone. Some of the newest solutions in this category:
- Home monitoring of the elderly through GPS enabled phones that double as heart monitors.
- Integrated power optimization features of wireless networks to help extend the battery life of mobile units. (For example Motorola’s solution includes “Mesh-enabled access points allow personnel to access mission-critical information even outside the building, such as in an ambulance bay. Self-configuring and self-healing, they can also be used to set up a temporary network in a makeshift triage situation, if necessary.”)
- Bar code scanning in place of manual data entry: a hospital's nurses, medical secretaries, and clinicians can use bar code scanners to collect information from patients' records, having a drastic impact on time-saving and reducing errors.
- Tracking samples from bedside to lab and back(similar to way one can track a FedEx package). Also, blood donations can be tracked in the same way, all the way up to transfusion.
- Equipment location anywhere throughout a hospital or clinic through microchip and/or GPS technology.
- Hospital/clinic-wide notifications of any updates/changes to a patient’s state or record to appropriate users.
These are just a few of the exciting new trends in wireless capabilities and increasing mobility. There are various versions of each of these types of technologies for both hospital and smaller-provider settings. For more information on where to turn for these types of services, contact us at sales@intellisuite.net.
“...by giving doctors, nurses and other caregivers access to correct, up-to-the-minute information wirelessly, [we] can work more efficiently and virtually eliminate potential mistakes…”
- Dr. Liza Heslop, Director, Centre for Health Services Operations Management