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Mobile Health Care

It’s a fair bit of fact that bedlam is a typical part of one’s day if one is a member of the health care industry. There are constant chores to keep up with, a stream of patients to diagnose on a daily basis, beds to clean—it’s a world that’s constantly on the move. So much so that face-to-face consultations are not likely in most situations. Hence, mishaps happen. Symptoms are often overlooked or at worse, a wrong dosage of medication is administered.

It is, indeed, a right enough mess. The health centers, of course, are trying to make up for budget cuts and staff shortages by employing better communication strategies guaranteed to facilitate efficient patient care between staff members.

Hospitals these days need more than competent hands to keep them running. With everything going mobile these days, it is certainly about time that medical centers kept up by installing their own systems to provide their workers with the right means. Cordless phones are one way that allows staff members to move freely among patients and have no trouble staying connected with the others.

“After all, nurses and physicians are really mobile workers,” stated Dr. Christoph Lehmann, director of clinical IT at the Children’s Medical and Surgical Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Constantly in Flux

Mobile cordless technology can offer hospital employees with an extensive range of operations guaranteed to take the grind out of health care. From training as well as communication matters among staff members to managing records and administering drugs, digital devices like cordless phones are certain to provide faster and better means for these professionals to work. Of course, one can only assume such results if the systems installed are particularly tailored to match the physical environment as well as culture of a given center. Otherwise, such cordless systems will only serve to add to an already chaotic mix.

One example of an efficient system that boasted patient care efficiency is the case of Vassar Brothers Medical Center, located in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.. Here, staff members employed which used a Vocera Communications wireless system in order to enhance their communications. This system also worked very well in supporting a bar coding system that effectively did away possible errors in the delivery of bedside medication for patients.

Assisted by HealthServe , the IT department of the Health Quest system that is behind the management of the center and two other facilities located in the Hudson Valley, the Vassar center was able to hit upon the ideal kind of intravenous drug pumps as these drug pumps were able to work with the wireless infrastructure of the center in order to read bar codes as well as accurately dispense patient medications. The facility eventually switched to an all-frequency wireless system. This measure was taken so as to avoid interference problems.

A year after the technology was installed, Vassar had already captured and wholly prevented 5,331 harmful drug events—a figure that was infinitely greater than what the hospital had expected.

Nicholas Christiano, who is vice president and CIO at Health Quest, had explained that although most of the incidents were not life-threatening, two to four of them could have resulted in medically adverse situations, something that puts patient care in most hospitals in doubt.

In this case, the medical center had learned, most assuredly, a number of crucial information from using their cordless phone units, Christiano said. As conscientious as his team was in putting into record the potentially damaging drug events, staff members estimated that merely 200 incidents happened each year. Discovering that the number actually went beyond that made it all the more obvious that the hospital was missing out on a lot of events every year.

The wireless bar coding system also served to make medication deliveries to run with greater accuracy as well as speed, improving the level of patient care. It also keeps the center from coughing up expenses to fix problems of poor medication administration. With a wireless system of this sort in place, the facility can save considerably on costs and maintain hospital standards for patient care.

Christiano voiced the same thoughts on the matter. He said that the wireless infrastructure affords hospital professionals with a communications channel that is wholly efficient. It also makes it possible for nurses along with other staff members of the medical center to communicate with one or another, even if they are standing by the bedside of a particular patient or simply striding down the hall.

More than 600 Vocera devices, which were small badges attached to lanyards, were distributed by HealthServe to each and every nurse, physical therapist and to a number of physicians. The payoff was relatively fast and significantly favorable.

“We captured a minimum of 30 minutes of saved time per shift,” Christiano revealed. “We were able to eliminate our need for a nursing agency, [and] we estimated $1 million in salary savings the first year alone.”