Improving Patient Care and Safety with Mobile Technology

Improving Patient
Care and Safety with
MobileTechnology:
Solutions to make you more
efficient, accurate, and
connected

Jody Costa joined Barcoding, Inc. as
Director of Marketing in 2010. With
over 10 years of experience in writing,
marketing, and publishing, Costa is
responsible for all strategic and tactical
aspects of the marketing program.
Editor
Jody Costa
Barcoding, Inc. is a national systems
integrator, specializing in the
development, deployment, and
management of supply chain and
mobility systems based on automated
data capture and wireless technology.
www.barcoding.com.

Chapter 1: Supply vs. Demand
Chapter 2: Mobile Technology for Healthcare
Chapter 3: Effective ER Management
Chapter 4: Efficient Technology Implementation
Chapter 5: IT Concerns and BYOD
Chapter 6: Supporting Hospital IT Effectively
Sources and Additional Reading
TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1:
Supply vs. Demand
Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare
If there is one topic that continues to take center stage in our
national debate, it’s the ACA and it’s ramifications for the healthcare
industry.
While there are many provisions to the new healthcare law, the major
challenge (and raison d'être) is to insure millions of new
individuals (estimated at 30 million).These newly insured, who may
have only received minimal care before, will now being looking to
take advantage of healthcare services.

Increase in Primary Care
Demand
Primary healthcare services are
the entry point for care.With
more people insured under
ACA, there will be an influx of
demand.
When this demand outweighs
the supply of primary care
doctors, patients will turn to
emergency rooms for service.
Longer waits for receiving
health care services are
possible, and increased
fragmentation as specialists
continue to meet the
immediate needs for primary
health care services.
http://metromedicaldirect.wordpress.com/2013/
10/18/mobile-technology-in-healthcare-and-the-
affordable-care-act-part-1/
Increasing Demand with Decreasing Supply
Shortage of Doctors
Right now, there is national
shortage of doctors and nurses
according to the Association of
American Medical Colleges.
Population growth and increased
demand from ACA will
contribute to the shortage.
Those entering medical school
realize gaining adequate pay in
primary care will be near
impossible. For this reason
(among others) family nurse
practitioners (FNP’s) and
physician assistants (PA’s)
throughout private practices and
retail health clinics are increasing
in presence.
http://www.vantageclinicalsolutions.com/blog/2008
/06/18/supply-and-demand-in-primary-care-not-
what-one-would-expect-or-want/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/02/health/obamacar
e-doctor-shortage/index.html
Improving Patient Care and Safety with MobileTechnology
// Page 2 Table of Contents

Change is Imminent
What is on the horizon due to this skewed
supply and demand model?
In needing to do more with less,
healthcare must evolve to
become more efficient, accurate,
and connected.
• Increased ER utilization
• Increased extensive random diagnostic testing
• Increased insurance premiums
• Increase in the number of urgent care facilities with
basic yet ever expanding diagnostic services including
free standing full scale emergency rooms
• Increase of Nurse Practitioner training programs
• Increase demands on physicians’ time

CHAPTER 2:
MobileTechnology for Healthcare
“Effective use of technology and data can improve the
quality of care and make our health care system more efficient,”
said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Mobile technology is the key component to solving the
supply/demand challenge described in Chapter 1. Becoming more
efficient, accurate, and connected with technology frees up
doctors and nurses to spend more time with patients.
http://www.hrsa.gov/about/news/pressreleases/121220healthcenternetworks.html

Main Areas forTechnology
Improvements in a Hospital or
Acute Care Facility:
• Admissions
• Point of Care
• Pharmacy
• Materials Management
• Specimen Collection
Make Doctors More Efficient
A shortage of doctors means that those who are
practicing have increasing demands on their time. Less
time, more expensive hours - this is the force driving
efficiency changes.
The only scalable, near-term solution is to enable
physicians to be more efficient and manage more
patients, while empowering them to improve the quality
of care.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/affordable-care-act/

Admissions
Patients are welcomed by admissions staff with a barcoded
wristband that permits hospital staff to accurately identify all
patients throughout their hospital stay using a hospital-ready
scanner.
Point of Care
Nurses equipped with mobile devices scan their own
barcoded ID badge, as well as the patient’s wristband and the
medication before administration, the blood bag before
transfusion, or the food tray before delivery.
To ensure specimens are associated with the right patient,
clinicians can immediately label and scan blood or specimen
draws at the bedside.
Pharmacy
In hospital pharmacies, most medication
packages carry a barcode. Scanning these labels
at the point-of-care immediately verifies and
records medication dispensing, to ensure the right
medication in the right dosage is given to the right
patient, via the right route of administration, at the
right time.
Mobile Technology Improves Patient Care

Specimen Collection
Hospital and independent laboratories improve specimen
identification accuracy and tracking efficiency with use of
barcodes on samples and aliquots.
These healthcare barcodes are scanned in laboratories or at
the bedside to record transfers and create accurate test result
entries, with a drastic reduction of errors due to manual data
entry. Mobile terminals designed for healthcare use cases
help reduce errors and costs to hospitals and labs while
enhancing patient safety.
Materials Management
The use of mobile scanning terminals specially designed for
healthcare eliminates manual data entry, paper files, and forms by
automating electronic medical records and other documents that
determine how and where medical inventory is received, stored,
and used.

Technology to Meet ER Demands
ERs across the country are gearing up for an increasing number of
visits as the number of insured rises with ACA and the access to
primary care becomes squeezed.
Mobile technology utilizing strong wireless networks will play a key
role in processing patient flow and ensuring patient safety. One
piece of technology in particular, RFID, holds promise. Let’s take a
look at an example.
CHAPTER 3:
Effective ER Management

ER Management – RFID as a Solution
Challenges
An overcrowding dilemma at Summa Akron City Hospital created
a shortage of beds and hospital staff, meaning EMS squads had to
wait to unload patients. Summa needed to reduce wait times for
both EMS squads and patients and streamline ER services.
Background
Summa Health System is one of the
largest integrated delivery systems in
Ohio and serves more than one million
patients each year and represents more
than 2,000 licensed inpatient beds.
Outpatient care is extended in nine
community health centers.
Solution
Summa used a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) cot-tracking
solution from Barcoding, Inc.
Results
Tagging the ER cots with RFID enabled Summa to have access to
critical data from its ER entrance. In addition, Summa had the
ability to treat more patients in less time enabling EMS
squads to move on to the next emergency faster.They saw more
efficient staffing and decreased patient wait times.

CHAPTER 4:
EfficientTechnology
Implementation
Upgrading IT in Hospitals is Crucial to Patient Safety
In the ER case study, we saw an ability to serve more patients
more efficiently through the use of technology.
To extend those benefits throughout the healthcare system,
deploy mobile healthcare scanning technology at the point-of-
care. IT, in the form of HIS systems, bar coding systems, RFID,
WLANs, and other tools, deliver the tracking benefits critical to
handle increasing demand and decreasing physician time.

Each hospital’s IT status is
different, but with investments
in technology, there will be
improvements in safety and
efficiency. ”
Before upgrading IT, review and consider:
• General state of IT infrastructure (capacity and health of wired
networks, wireless networks, servers, etc.)
• State of IT in the admissions department (i.e., printing bar coded
wristbands)
• State of IT to support order entry system (i.e., electronic access to
doctor’s orders)
• State of IT in the pharmacy (i.e., ability to bar code repackaged or
prepared medication)
• Current state of bar code scanners (i.e., ability to read modern bar
codes)
• Current state of IT support staff (i.e., need to manage updates,
upgrades, operating problems)
• Training of caregivers (i.e., training agenda to facilitate change)

With the appropriate planning,an upgrade
in IT can provide substantial benefits:
• Reduced medication inventory
due to more accurate tracking
• More accurate charge capture and
allocation
• Automated and connected
documentation of drug
administration and other patient care
• Efficient collection of vital signs
data
• Real-time access to patient records
• Efficient and connected
medication safety tools to address
a host of applications ranging from
assuring the right patient receives the
right medication to blood transfusion
verification to more accurate bedside
specimen collection and tracking
The road to
improvement
begins with
addressing the
first link in the
system – accurate
identification and
tracking at the
point of care –
tracking patients,
tracking
medication, and
tracking data.
Expected Benefits from an IT Upgrade
Mobile technology promotes efficiency, accuracy,
and connectivity to improve patient care and safety.

CHAPTER 5:
IT Concerns and BYOD
85 percent of
hospitals are
introducing BYOD
as a concept.1
BYOD or BringYour Own Device
BYOD or bring your own device is growing
as a mobile technology solution for hospitals.
Healthcare practitioners want to be more
accessible and connected in order to
increase responsiveness and improve patient
care – and the use of personal devices is
appealing.
Physicians are especially enthralled with BYOD – they can network
on social media sites to share treatment suggestions and remain in
compliance with healthcare regulations.2

Expectations of Hospital IT have radically changed
with the exploding popularity of Apple products like the iPhone
and iPad.These personal devices are now so ubiquitous that
many physicians, nurses, and hospital staff expect to use them for
patient care, at all hours of the day.
It is assumed (whether right or wrong) that IT will support
these devices – whether by accessing the hospital network/email
or by downloading documents and applications.
I expect my iPhone/iPad to
work within the hospital
environment. I expect IT to
support my personal devices.”
// Page 14
Table of Contents

The Physician’s Case for BYOD
 Efficiency
 Moral Boost
 Ease of Use for
Outside Physicians
 Networking
These are just some of the
reasons more and more
doctors are demanding to use
their private devices when
working with patients.
To stay competitive, hospitals
must look closely at BYOD as
a way to keep physicians
happy, and to improve patient
care.
"Physicians are now asking
for things they never used
to ask for," Helen
Thompson, CIO for NCH
Health Systems, explains.
"We view BYOD as a
mechanism to make it easier
for physicians to practice
medicine at our hospital.
And it is a competitive
marketplace. Ease-of-use is a
competitive edge.”
http://www.fierceenterprisecommunicatio
ns.com/story/case-study-byod-keeps-
hospital-group-competitive-edge/2013-08-
08

// Page 16
Security is #1
As we’ve seen, the adoption of mobile technology is
inevitable, and worthwhile. However, increasing use of
mobile devices – especially personal BYOD – means
stronger security measures must be in place to protect
patient rights and maintain compliance.
Challenges with BYOD and Security
• Allowing privately-owned devices to access and store
hospital and patient information and encrypting data where
necessary
• Drafting and updating policies to properly protect against
HIPAA violations
• Observing the potential for BYOD to clash with an
organization's social media policies
• Ensuring multi-platform integration of key software
applications
• Making decisions on how to manage usage charges
employees incur when personal devices are used for
professional purposes
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/directory/byod
Table of Contents

Healthcare organizations are now forced to reconcile the
juxtaposition of managing HIPAA and privacy and regulatory
requirements while ensuring a more connected and
networked workplace
BYOD and HIPAA 4
InYour Healthcare Facility,Ask:
1. Are physicians who are actively networking on social sites
still in compliance with increasingly strict regulations?
2. Are personal applications locked down so that rogue
applications installed by the clinician won’t access PHI
because the device is now tied to the hospital's network?
3. Because BYOD devices are dual-use, are they secure if
they are lost or stolen?
4. By using any of the Dropbox-style apps, are your physicians
creating a potential leak point for patient information?
http://blog.biscom.com/bid/250492/Hospital-IT-Security-and-BYOD-in-2013-Part-1

If you don’t have a current strategy for managing
mobile technology, you are behind. Here is a step-
by-step approach for you to follow to make certain your
hospital or healthcare facility has a flexible, scalable, and
effective strategy in place.
Start by conducting a device audit. Find out what
you currently have in order to shape overall IT policy.What
features are important to physicians and/or to the hospital?
Identify and work through gaps.
CHAPTER 6:
Supporting Hospital IT Effectively

Your guidelines/baselines should establish rules like:
• What is your privacy policy? Who owns the data now
or if it’s destroyed?
• What requirements are enforceable for mobile
devices to enter the hospital? (i.e., can they check email,
download docs, etc.)
• What types of devices are allowed? (i.e.,Android,
Apple?)
• Are all departments involved? Mobile technology
affects the entire healthcare facility. Establish goals of
physicians, nurses, HR, IT, etc. to create a truly effective policy.
Establishment of baselines is
the number one step to take
to effectively manage mobile
technology.”
// Page 19
Table of Contents

Mobile Device Management
(MDM) is Critical
Without a MDM solution, you won’t be
able to handle device lifecycles, security,
applications and content, or diagnostics
as your network of workstations,
rugged computers and terminals, and
mobile devices grows.
Look for a solution with:
 Centralized management console
 Real-time support
 Reactive and proactive management
 Complete lifecycle management
 Over-the-air configurability
Key Benefit
Push HW &
SW updates
remotely to
devices in the
hospital– no
manual
provisioning
// Page 20
Table of Contents

Guidelines for IT on Mobile
Technology Security and Use
 Ensure correct permissions are granted to users
while allowing doctors and medical staff to access
the information they need.
 Set strict guidelines regarding password and login
user information.
 Have adequate firewall technology in place to
prevent external threats.
 Invest in security technology that enables the
encryption of sensitive information and the ability to
remotely wipe the device
 Have a disaster recovery plan in place to handle
BYOD
 Provide the right productivity and sharing tools
so physicians don’t seek rogue applications
 Encourage regular back-ups on mobile devices
 Provide effective training to support the IT team
 Create established policies and baselines to
ensure the safety of patient information
// Page 21
http://www.healthcareglobal.com/healthcare_technology/how-to-manage-byod-systems-
in-the-healthcare-arena
Table of Contents

Our best recommendation for
implementing a successful mobile
technology platform is to utilize a
trusted partner– contact Barcoding,
Inc.We are a trusted advisor to more
than 2,500 companies across the
country.
Good News!
We can help…
Watch Industry Experts Discuss
BYOD Live!

• http://www.healthcareglobal.com/healthcare_technology/how-to-manage-byod-
systems-in-the-healthcare-arena
• http://blog.biscom.com/bid/250492/Hospital-IT-Security-and-BYOD-in-2013-Part-1
• Case study: BYOD keeps hospital group on competitive edge -
FierceEnterpriseCommunications
http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/case-study-byod-keeps-
hospital-group-competitive-edge/2013-08-08#ixzz2dwIGYEBz
• http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/mobiles-
impact-on-hospital-it-security-in-2013-how-your-institution-can-adapt-to-byod.html
• http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Management-Orthodoxy-
Challenged-by-iPad-iPhone-257619/
• http://www.sap.com/campaigns/2011_04_mobility/assets/Mobility-
Its_Impact_Opportunities_and_Challenges.pdf
• http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/BYOD-10-Tips-Enterprises-Can-Use-to-
Protect-Their-Data-700259/
• http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/blogs/peertopeer/2012/09/why-most-byod-
managers-will-welcome-iphone-5.aspx
• http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9230476/Best_BYOD_management_Cont
ainment_is_your_friend
• http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/09/10/byopc-byod-it-consumerization-dont-matter-
in-the-cloud/
• http://www.eweek.com/it-management/byod-social-media-among-top-security-
threats-of-2013/
• http://mashable.com/2013/12/09/health-tech-trends-2014/
• http://www.eweek.com/it-management/cloud-technology-mhealth-major-trends-for-
health-it-in-2014.html
• http://www.mobilehealthmarketplace.com/5-key-health-technology-
trends/?doing_wp_cron=1388442216.4351079463958740234375
Sources and Additional Reading

Be Efficient – Accurate – Connected Right Now!
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http://www.barcoding.com/
hospital-acute-care-facility-
data-capture-
solutions.shtml
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1.888.412.7226

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