Hospital administrators sets their sights on regulating smartphone, tablet use
CAMBRIDGE, MA – The proliferation of mobile devices in healthcare has given administrators a vexing problem with no easy answer: Should a health system dictate what smartphones and tablets its employees use or allow them to use their own personal devices?
The issue led to some spirited discussion at the World Congress 3rd Annual Leadership Summit on mHealth, held July 28-29 at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, Mass., when administrators from two health systems offered different solutions.
Whereas the Deaconess Health System, an Evansville, Ind.-based, six-hospital system serving parts of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, has embraced a “bring your own device” policy, Canada’s Ottawa Hospital is equipping its staff with iPads – and developing its own apps.
“They’re not easy decisions to make,” said Dale Potter, the hospital’s senior vice president and chief information officer, who has more than 1,000 devices deployed now, has ordered another 1,800 iPad 2 models and has a team of about 120 developers on hand to create apps (more than a dozen have been launched so far, he said). “But we wanted to be ahead of the pack.”
Potter said the iPads free the medical staff from their PCs or workstations and enable them to interact more freely with patients, while having all the information they need at their fingertips. He said the cost of the iPads (around $600 apiece) is easily offset by a reduction in PC costs and time saved by physicians, residents and nurses.
He said security is ensured by Mobile Iron, an app that each user must download and which sets hospital-wide standards for iPad use and ensures that the iPads are wiped clean after each use. He also said the iPads are “cherished possessions.”
“Of the thousands of devices out there now, I have yet to lose an iPad,” he said.
Todd Richardson has a different outlook. The chief information officer at Deaconess, he said the issue of mobile device use within a facility comes down to ownership – and he doesn’t want to claim ownership and maintenance of each and every doctor’s smartphone or tablet.
“We really believe that they are personal devices,” he said. “And if it’s yours, you’re probably going to take care of it.”
Richardson said Deaconess supports each employee’s device with the proper apps and network infrastructure. And in taking the worries of ownership and maintenance out of administrators’ hands, he said, it gives them time to worry about other issues – such as ensuring wireless connectivity in buildings that were built well before wireless devices were even invented.
“We don’t have 21st century facilities,” he pointed out. “The penetration in our facility sucks really bad for us.”
Richardson said the issue of regulating mobile devices within the hospital setting doesn’t have a right or wrong answer.
“The key thing is, nothing is necessarily right,” he said. “It just depends on what works in your organization.”
But it’s an issue that every organization is going to face. Recent surveys have pegged smartphone use among physicians at more than 80 percent, while more than 30 percent own tablets, more than 20 percent use tablets in clinical settings and more than 25 percent use tablets and smartphones.