Mobile

HL7 – not just for IT anymore. That thinking is the catalyst behind a triptych of recent moves designed to open the standards process to more health professionals, notably caregivers.

Everyone in healthcare uses smartphones nowadays, but no one's quite sure what to do about them.

Epocrates officials were showing off an iPad version of their new electronic health record at the HIMSS12 Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas, Feb.20-24. The sleek, easy-to-use EHR app, which operated on screen touches rather than mouse clicks, seemed poised to make a splash in an ever-crowded field, which numbers more than 300 offerings at last count.

A new study from HIMSS Analytics and Kroll Advisory Solutions shows that, a diligent focus on security compliance notwithstanding, healthcare providers are still badly lacking when it comes to privacy protections. In fact, data breaches have only increased in recent years.

Intel Fellow Eric Dishman speaks with Healthcare IT News about the value of mobile health tools and personal health records -- and about the challenges and opportunities for more empowered patients.

With some federal agency either launching or crowning the winner of a new developer contest seemingly every week these days, Wil Yu, HHS special assistant of innovations and research and director of ONC's SHARP program, discusses the challenges' true value -- and explains what happens after the winners collect their prizes.

"We're in a classically disruptive moment right now," said newly-minted U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, speaking Monday at the Healthcare Experience Design (HxD) conference, "from which more good will come than we can possibly imagine."

Many physicians are gung-ho about their smart phones and tablets, but John Halamka, MD, warns there is also a downside, distracting doctors from patient care.

Christopher Wasden, managing director of PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows off his favorite mHealth apps and devices working together as his connected personal health record and discusses the problems with interoperability and integration with most PHRs in this clip from his HIT X.0 presentation at HIMSS12.

With mobile technology evolving every few months, keeping up with the devices' changing role in the workplace can be tough. Even though their effectiveness is being debated, bring your own device (BYOD) programs are popping up left and right, offering employees the comfort and ease of having their personal mobile devices in the office. Randy DeLorenzo helps outline six keys to developing a BYOD program for healthcare.