Mobility solutions on the move: vendors see an uptake in 2008

By Patty Enrado, Editor

ORLANDO, Fla. — Mobile solutions would seem to be ideal for the healthcare industry, given the mobility of clinicians and staff within a healthcare system and the need to access data remotely for critical decision making.

Adoption, however, has been slow. One of the main reasons is the disruptive impact on clinician workflow. That may be changing as technology vendors address the industry’s specific needs.

At HIMSS08, you can attend eight education sessions on mobility solutions in the healthcare setting. You can also gain insight by hearing what representatives of mobile solutions providers believe are trends in the marketplace in 2008. Everyone is in agreement that adoption will grow.

The ideal mobile solution will deliver fast access to applications and do so simply through voice, said Bill Montgomery, national director of healthcare for Sprint. Doing so would enhance user experience, which would help broaden adoption. Sprint Nextel Direct to Connect embodies the company’s “push to X” concept of instant communication: pushing the button to get someone and now pushing the button to get something — in the healthcare industry’s case, patient data.

Shands Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla., did a study on the benefits of using Sprint Nextel Direct Connect. Every call saved 34 second on average, said Michael Suk, MD, director of Shands’ orthopedic trauma service. Considering that the medical center handles 157,000 pages a month, the aggregate time savings is notable. While no empirical study has shown the solution is tied to better outcomes and patient care, Suk and his colleagues believe it has. He emphasized that technology can’t completely replace human interaction, nor should it; rather, the mobile solution should make human-to-human interaction more efficient and with a faster response time.

InnerWireless (Booth 6473) will be showcasing its converged wireless solution, Horizon, and its real-time location system, PanGo, as well as integration demonstrations with other healthcare IT companies such as Cisco, Hospira, ThingMagic and PatientKeeper. In addition, InnerWireless customer Dave Duncan, corporate vice president of UMass Memorial HealthAlliance Hospital, will present “One Wireless Solution,” a Product Pavilion session tomorrow at 4:15 PM in Booth 8181.

Ed Cantwell, president, CEO and chairman of InnerWireless, believes that as mobility solution adoption grows, connectivity will be critical. “There will be an ongoing need for a reliable infrastructure to support the convergence of WAN and WLAN platforms,” he said. “In turn, this connectivity will facilitate the ability of physicians, nurses and patients to communicate and access data wirelessly everywhere and every time, including at the point-of-care. This will lead to improved workflow, enhanced collaboration, and better patient care and safety.”

Demand for handheld computing solutions for bedside point of care is increasing, said Bob Zink, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Socket Mobile. “With patient deaths due to medication errors numbering in the hundreds of thousands, according to the U.S. National Pharmaceutical Council, hospitals are increasingly focused on improving patient safety, and a highly effective way to address that issue is with mobile computing solutions that bring the medication administration process directly to the patient’s bedside,” he said. Socket Mobile (Booth 1312) will be exhibiting a number of its products including its CF RFID Reader Scanner Card Series 6 and partner applications for, among other things, medical alert identification.

Harris Corp. (Booth 1841) will be demonstrating how it brings enterprise intelligence at the point of care. The company leverages technology it originally developed for the intelligence community to demonstrate how pathologists and other clinicians can view, collaborate and rapidly manipulate multi-gigabyte size digital images in a virtual environment. The sharing of large files over local- or wide-area networks can enable remote collaboration for faster decision making.

The company will also demonstrate its Medical Data Multiviewer technology, which allows surgeons and other clinicians to, among other things, view patient vital signs, manipulate digital pathology samples, view surgical video, access the electronic medical records, all at once on one monitor from within a department or remote control/monitoring room.

“As the adoption of mobile devices continues, the ability to access and move information, including large image files a thousand times the size of what can be shared and viewed today, will be paramount to ensure point-of-care functionality,” said Jim Traficant, vice president of Harris Healthcare Solutions. “IDNs will need to plan for this digital and mobile transformation so care givers can use these devices to truly improve care and make better-informed decisions.”

“There’s no question that wireless technologies are rapidly transforming the way healthcare professionals deliver care to their patients,” said Jim McCarthy, director of healthcare solutions for Colubris Networks. “Tablet PCs can instantly record and transmit physician orders. Wireless ECG carts can take vital readings and share them instantly with doctors and specialists in other parts of the hospital, or the world. And new wireless video carts make it significantly easier for remote doctors to ‘meet’ patients regardless of physical location, or for doctors to view X-rays and other diagnostic images at the patient bedside. Wireless technologies put to use in the healthcare industry are significantly improving the efficiency, accuracy of safety of patient care.”

In addition to showcasing its Colubris Intelligent Mobility Solution at its Booth 3121, Colubris Networks will demonstrate how its wireless client bridge (WCB) gives wireless capability to legacy medical equipment such as cardiac monitors and pulse oximetry equipment. The company will also demonstrate the integration between its technology and the Polycom HDX Practitioner Cart, a portable and mobile high-definition telemedicine solution.

Wayport (Booth 6672) will be demonstrating some of its key products for healthcare – the CyberCenter Express public space PC, which can be used to access the Internet and Microsoft Office applications, and NaviCity portal, which delivers location-specific information.

Mobility solutions are delivering multiple benefits, according to Dan Lowden, vice president of business development and marketing. “We see that hospitals are looking at wireless solutions to provide physician/staff retention and satisfaction, a superior patient/guest experience, improved patient satisfaction scores; improved efficiency, better communication with patients, staff and physicians and vendor services and the ability to leverage their network infrastructure and services that enhance the reliability and quality of healthcare,” he said.

iMedica also sees mobility aiding the entire physician workflow – from private practice, to hospital rounds, to accessing or updating information offsite at home or at a remote location. “Critical to the practice and patient well-being is the ability for mobility and accessibility to operate hand-in-hand,” said Kristin Raffaelle, vice president of marketing. “Therefore, the ability to be assured that information will automatically synchronize such that billing and clinical information are current is vital.”

iMedica (Booth 2307) will be exhibiting its Patient Relationship Manager (PRM) software and its latest tablet computing technology. iMedica will also launch its “Take a Tablet Program,” which provides PRM along with a Fujitsu Tablet PC for use for one week with no obligation.

“Users are seeking utility from the mobility infrastructures they have installed and in which they have invested,” said Alex Gerwer, market manager of healthcare solutions for Siemens Communications. “This means shifting paradigms so that activities which were performed in a certain manner in a non-mobile environment are now supported by solutions that allow them to be performed in a manner consistent with mobility. There is also the need to manage the added complexity that the implementation of mobility inherently introduces, such as the increased number of communication end-points associated with each user.”

Siemens Communications (Booth 3681) will be exhibiting technologies for patient education, entertainment and connectivity; clinical notification solutions, remote physician consult and collaboration; and healthcare mobility.

Interested in learning more about mobility solutions and what they have accomplished for various healthcare organizations? Then check out these HIMSS08 education sessions:
Isabelle Guis, senior manager of Cisco’s mobility solutions group, will present, “How Mobility Transforms Healthcare Organizations - A Day in the Life of a Physician and Pharmacist,” tomorrow at 2:15 PM in Room 473. The Product Pavilion 40 session will focus on how new mobility solutions enable enhanced collaboration among healthcare professional and improve productivity and overall patient care while abiding by regulatory compliance and patient privacy by using real-world examples from physicians and pharmacists.

Cheryl Parker, RN, senior clinical informatics specialist at Motion Computing, will review case studies of proven implementations of mobile point of care documentation and online order entry systems in her Product Pavilion 5 session in Booth 8381. Her “Ecosystem for Mobility: Getting Back to the Bedside with the C5 Mobile Clinical Assistant,” will be on Tuesday at 11:15 AM.

Desmond Jordan, MD, attending physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and associate professor of biomed informatics at Columbia University, and Maryam Behta, PharmD, director of quality research and technology utilization at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, will present, “Mobility, a New Paradigm in Healthcare: M3 Delivers Results at NYP,” on Tuesday at 1:00 PM in Room 224. The education session 86 will look at the architecture design, mobile platform, audio/video-conferencing features and user interfaces of the Mobile Medical Monitor.

Bruce Wallace, leader of Nortel healthcare solutions for Nortel, will present, “Key to Operational Efficiency in Healthcare: Asset Tracking & Management,” on Tuesday at 5:15 PM in Booth 8181. The Product Pavilion session 22 will highlight asset tracking to reduce capital spending. Wallace will discuss a real-time example of enhancing operational efficiency using a mobility solution.

Neil Martin, MD, chief of neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center, will discuss the implementation of Global Care Quest, a mobile PACS viewer product, in his education session 128, “Wireless Mobility: Remote PACS Access in Your Pocket,” on Wednesday at 8:30 AM in Room 308A.

Gregg Malkary, managing director at Spyglass Consulting Group, and Sameer Bade, MD, chief medical technology officer at Medstar Health, present, “Point of Care Computing - Challenges and Opportunities,” on Wednesday at 9:45 AM in Room 224B. The education session 129, in collaboration with AAMI, will highlight national studies and a case study of the impact of funding, technical design and clinician adoption on a mobile solution.