Building A Successful Hospital Mobile Strategy

Hospital leaders know that having a mobile strategy in place has become a necessity. Doing so not only accommodates physicians’ and nurses’ mobile workstyles, it leverages tablets and smartphones in a manner which makes hospital communication and EMR use more effective.

The thing is, making a mobile strategy work is far more complicated than simply giving caregivers with mobile devices and wishing them luck, notes Trey Lauderdale, founder and president of mobile communications firm Voalte. In a recent piece for the HIT Consultant blog, Lauderdale argues that there are a few key steps hospital CIOs need to take if their mobile initiatives are going to be successful. These include:

Assess and  prepare your infrastructure

Before you roll out a major mobile initiative, it’s critical to make sure both your physical and digital infrastructure can handle a new flood of mobile device traffic, Lauderdale says. Bear in mind that your Wi-Fi network will need to handle data, text and voice transmission on a level it hasn’t before, and what’s more, that this demand is likely to change and grow. You’re also going to need to figure out how to integrate mobile devices with alarms management middleware.

*Plan for deploying your smartphones

As you think through the nuts and bolts of handing out smartphones, be aware than you’ll need to see to their day-to-day functioning, Lauderdale points out. For example, you’ll need battery cases to protect the phones and keep them charged shift-long, and screen shields to  protect against accidents, and possibly a custom holster to help nurses work comfortably with phones. You’ll also need to decide whether smartphones will be shared or assigned to specific caregivers, and how you’ll store and charge them when they’re not being used.

Manage and update smartphones

With caregivers using smartphones as an official work device, you’ll then need to implement a mobile device management strategy, an approach which allows you to download apps to phones, update operating systems and make repairs when necessary. You will also want to include mobile devices in your security strategy, for functions such as password protection, lockout protocols and provisioning access, Lauderdale says.

Not every healthcare organization is ready to invest in its own stock of smartphones or tablets. Many are still struggling to implement a BYOD strategy that meets the institution’s needs without asking doctors and nurses to check their personal device at the door. But if you’re ready to supply and control mobile devices, Lauderdale’s suggestions make sense.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

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