A Wi-Fi Windfall In Healthcare?
By Ken Congdon, Health IT Outcomes
The healthcare industry has always been an early adopter of Wi-Fi, but a new study by ABI Research suggests that adoption of Wi-Fi enabled technologies will become even more aggressive in the healthcare vertical as a result of President Obama's stimulus package. According to ABI's study titled "The Current State Of Global Healthcare Wi-Fi," revenue from the sale of Wi-Fi enabled healthcare products (not including Wi-Fi equipped medical equipment) will total $4.9 billion by 2014. That represents an increase of nearly 70% over today's figure. Three applications — mobile asset tracking, EMR (electronic medical record) and EHR (electronic health record) transfer, and standardized medication administration — are likely to fuel the majority of this growth.
Mobile Asset Tracking & Staff Mobility
Time wasted searching a healthcare facility for critical mobile devices (e.g. infusion pumps, ventilators, intra-aortic balloon pumps, defibrillators, etc.) not only decreases staff productivity, but can also compromise patient care and safety. In a frequently chaotic healthcare environment, these assets are often misplaced, hidden, or hoarded by staff members — actions that inadvertently contribute to unnecessary equipment rentals or purchases. These examples clearly illustrate how poor asset visibility is contributing to the rising cost of healthcare. To combat asset inefficiency, hospitals throughout the United States are implementing Wi-Fi based RTLS (real-time location system) technologies. These solutions allow healthcare providers to attach RTLS tags to their high-value medical devices and track their locations in near real-time over a Wi-Fi network. One hospital currently using a Wi-Fi RTLS solution to track its critical medical assets is Carolinas Healthcare. As a result of the technology, Carolinas Healthcare eliminated $200,000 in annual equipment rental expenses. To read the entire story click here.
While medical equipment such as infusion pumps and ventilators are indeed valuable, even more critical to a patient's wellbeing are the caregivers themselves. For this reason, many healthcare facilities are also using Wi-Fi RTLS tags to track the location of key medical personnel such as doctors and nurses. With this data, a hospital can alert the closest possible caregiver to attend to a patient in need. In most instances, the Wi-Fi tags used to track personnel not only emit a wireless signal to indicate location, but also include a SMS (short message service) screen so caregivers can receive text messages alerting them to the location and nature of a patient emergency.
EMR/EHR Transfer
As EHR adoption escalates as a result of the healthcare stimulus package, so too will the use of Wi-Fi networks to transfer EMR and EHR files to centralized databases. For example, many doctors currently use Wi-Fi enabled laptops or tablet computers equipped with a mobile EMR application to record patient information at the point of care. This information ultimately needs to be associated with the complete patient record stored in a central EHR system. Wi-Fi networks are largely being used as a means to transmit this information in near real-time. However, the rate at which Wi-Fi will be leveraged for transmission of health information will depend largely on how quickly security concerns surrounding Wi-Fi can be addressed.
Standardized Medication Administration
According to the Institute of Medicine, medical errors kill an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 Americans every year, including 7,000 deaths from medication-related errors alone. A majority of these medication errors occur at the point of administration. For this reason, several healthcare facilities are adopting medication administration solutions that consist of Wi-Fi enabled mobile computers equipped with bar code scanning technology. These solutions eliminate human error from the process by positively identifying the nurse, patient, medication, and dosage prior to administration. In other words, by scanning a bar-coded patient wristband and comparing that information with a patient database via a Wi-Fi connection, a nurse can ensure the right patient receives the right medication at the right time.
The benefits of all these Wi-Fi applications include reduced operating costs and enhanced efficiency. However, ABI Research VP Stan Schatt warns that implementing a successful Wi-Fi solution will involve multiple players. "No one vendor has all the necessary pieces to make a complete Wi-Fi system for a major medical institution," he says. "A premium should be placed on systems integration and creating cohesive partnerships to ensure all the pieces of the Wi-Fi solution work together." For more information on the value of Wi-Fi in healthcare read ABI's complete study, "The Current State Of Global Healthcare Wi-Fi."