It’s not surprising to learn that health IT workers are among the heaviest users of mobile devices, but it’s encouraging nonetheless to review the latest Forrester research, which finds that 95 percent of healthcare enterprises rely on smartphones for work, usually in addition to laptop computers. Read »

Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Thomson Reuters is beefing up its Clinical Xpert suite of workflow solutions with the launch of its new Pharmacy Intervention solution for hospitals. Although Clinical Xpert has been the category leader for mobile data systems in the Best in KLAS Awards for eight years running, the new software combines real-time clinical surveillance, mobile access to patient data, and Micromedex reference information—all aimed at helping hospital pharmacists identify and document interventions at the point of care, prevent adverse drug events, and reduce medication costs. Read »

Is a bi-directional mobile software solution what hospitals have been waiting for? Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Validus Medical Systems—which developed its Validus inTouch software system with a team of physicians, software engineers, cloud computing experts, and network security specialists before rolling it out to hospitals—believes so. Read »

A little over a year ago, I wrote how Voalté, which competes with Ascom, Cisco and others, wants to be the central communications engine--or traffic cop--on your healthcare organization's iPhone. This year at HIMSS, the Sarasota, Fla.-based developer of point-of-care communication technology plans to make its Voalté One solution available to Blackberry users, too. Read »

With the results of a recent Harris Poll indicating that 80 percent of Americans want mobile healthcare services delivered from smart phones, wearable bio-sensors and disease monitoring devices—and research from DataMonitor pegging telehealth spending projections at $6.1 billion in 2012—technology vendors are flocking to the mobile health IT space. Read »

Connected objects, which beyond mobile phones, tablets and laptops can include anything from a camera to a health monitor, are expected to contribute substantially to global healthcare savings. Any device with a mobile connection embedded in it qualifies as a connected object, and with an estimated 20 billion to 50 billion such devices expected to reside on mobile networks globally by 2020, the upshot is that they will help take a bite out of spiraling healthcare costs, which are expected to outpace GDP growth. Read »

If clinician turnout at last week’s mHealth Networking Conference in D.C., is any indication of things to come, doctors and other healthcare providers will not only play a critical role in supporting consumer uptake of mobile health apps and wireless medical devices, but in helping to slow the proliferation of symptom-driven apps that are prone to misinterpretation by patients. Read »

I’ve taken a fair amount of heat from health IT professionals over the years for including Apple’s line-up of mobile devices in a space largely devoted to enterprise mobility. Suffice it to say, most felt that since the Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of consumer devices didn’t have much of a stake in the healthcare enterprise, I should cut bait and move on. But, thanks mostly to physician preferences, Apple has in fact gained ground in healthcare. Now, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Agito Networks has come out with a major update to its product line—not only offering the ability to make calls over 3G, but including support for Apple’s iPhone and the ability to scale to up to 10,000 users. Read »

So, the federal government has kicked off a text messaging campaign aimed at arming expectant mothers with pregnancy related health information. If the news item got you thinking of creating bigger and better ways to leverage SMS technology in an effort to bridge the gap between medical experts and health information consumers, you’re probably onto something. Read »

In the wake of news that Boston’s MassGeneral Hospital for Children has implemented a new video program that puts doctors at the patient’s bedside 24/7—and another article showing how California has saved its taxpayers $13 million by using telemedicine to offset inmate transportation costs within the state’s prison system—Nashville, Tenn.-based SunCrest Healthcare has chosen Philips to supply telehealth monitors for its home care patients. Read »