The role and utility of wireless and/or mobile computing has enlarged in the healthcare sector over the period. The use of wireless technology with the mobile computing devices has proliferated into various healthcare organizations such as hospitals, clinics, long-term care centers and home care.
Most of the up to date technology tools that are available today, are complicated in the nature of their functioning and the physicians are unable to handle them with ease. However, the information systems and technologies have changed the way of practice of the physicians largely. The physicians now use a mobile practice companion or PDA device, which enable them to access critical clinical information about the patients. This helps them to provide greater patient care irrespective of the place or time, when the physicians need such information. These types of portable devices improve the practice efficiency of the physicians and they greatly enhance the patient satisfaction (Groen & Wine).
This system works in the healthcare setting by enabling the physician to enter the service provided to an inpatient, into a handheld mobile-computing device, which records the service, which is identified by appropriate code. Data from handheld device automatically are transformed to the legacy billing system through the wireless network. This eliminates the use of traditional paper records (Turisco, 2000).
These mobile technology tools focus primarily on the point of care. There is no need for a sophisticated data transfer infrastructure to transfer the data back to the main computer of the organization. Use of these mobile application combined with the wireless technologies, there are a number of benefits accrue to the healthcare organization. The benefits include:
- convenient access to patient data,
- accurate and timely entry of data,
- cheaper installation costs as compared to the wired networks,
- reduction in the number of medical errors,
- elimination of duplication of data entry,
- improvement in the quality of patient care,
- gross reduction in the operating costs and
- improved efficiency through smooth workflow.
One of the greatest challenges for the mobile computing vendors with respect to the extension of technological applications to healthcare sector is that they are unable to provide broader functionalities to meet the needs of the healthcare industry. It is critically important that they combine their efforts with the mobile computing application vendors to extend the technology to various potential healthcare applications.
High-speed internet provision and portal technologies are able to transform the delivery of healthcare. Portals can be accessed always through the computers, wireless devices and telephone (accessing by telephone is enabled using voice recognition and speech synthesis applications). These types of communication facilities enable real time collaboration between the patients and the healthcare providers. Portal infrastructures help the promotion of an environment, which promotes efficient customer service.
Although the implementation of wireless computing can provide ample financial benefits to the healthcare organizations, the full value of the technological implementation cannot be reaped by the organization unless proper planning is undertaken with respect to the implementation. The wireless enterprise design should be formulated after an extensive preparation of the organization to adapt to the new technological improvements. It is also essential that the organization should consider the adoption of wireless applications in the context of a larger business process re-engineering and enterprise-wide information technology effort to make the systems function effectively. There is the need to develop a long-range strategic plan in respect of the technological needs of the organization.
References
Groen, P., & Wine, M. (n.d.). Wireless Strategies for Healthcare Provider Organization. Web.
Turisco, F. (2000). Mobile Computing Is Next Technology Frontier for Healthcare Providers. Web.