Positioning Mobile Healthcare Tools for Success
Effective mobile technologies in healthcare share common traits, regardless of use cases. Among the biggest must-haves are easy connectivity with other staff (or patients) and the capacity to perform many clinical tasks, Norfleet says.
“If I have a device with secure texting, mobile administration and a barcode scanner, then I truly am mobile and the whole care team is able to see what’s going on,” she says.
Strategic partnerships with tech giants can advance a frictionless experience.
“We did some co-engineering with Apple so their devices could ride well on our network through intelligent routing,” Norfleet says. “We also work with our applications partners to prioritize apps on the network so they’re not competing for network space, because critical care is mission-critical.”
Still, challenges remain. Interoperability barriers between disparate platforms and health systems remain a significant hurdle to improving care delivery
“That sharing of information is going to be the next challenge, but the silver lining of the events that we are going through will be the drivers of our care delivery model,” Norfleet says. “Virtual health is the silver lining.”
Achieve Greater Mobility in Healthcare with Support and Security
The key to broad adoption of mobile care tools is ensuring that any onboarding experience — whether it’s surveying nurses about a tech purchase or rolling out a digital front door platform — is trouble-free and user-focused.
“The easier we make that entry point, the more patients will use it, and the expectations with virtual visits is that we’ll streamline that to make the experience as seamless as possible,” Norfleet says. “The technology is there; it’s about getting organizations to adopt it and for patients to start adopting it.”