Nearly all (90 percent) of hospitals have made or are planning significant investments in smartphones and secure mobile communications platforms, according to a survey conducted by Spyglass Consulting Group.
For the survey, Spyglass conducted over 100 telephone interviews during a three-month period beginning in September 2017 with healthcare professionals working in hospital environments. The interviewees represented a wide range of medical specialties, organization types and organization sizes.
Here are four survey findings.
1. The majority (73 percent) of hospitals said they have developed or were developing mobile strategies to address the communications, collaboration and computing requirements of clinical professionals across medical departments, standalone hospitals and ambulatory environments.
2. The survey found nearly half (48 percent) of hospitals have identified or were identifying return on investment models to justify mobile investments demonstrate cost reductions, outcome improvements and staff/patient satisfaction.
3. Sixty-eight percent of hospitals reported using middleware, which is software connects an operating system and applications, to collect, monitor and manage data, alerts and alarms produced from hospital systems. These systems included nurse call, biomedical devices, EHR, pharmacy and laboratory.
4. Hospitals in the survey also pointed to common communications challenges mobile clinical workers experience, including being overwhelmed by the overhead paging system and dissatisfaction with existing communications tools. Clinicians also reported EHR-based messaging tools are not well integrated with their workflow and are poorly designed.