Replacing Pagers – Medical Industry Using BlackBerry to Catch up to Communication Standards

I just got back from a small and cozy sideshow here at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium called the International Mobility Forum, where RIM zooms in on developers and experts from particular niches; this year, they’re looking at the medical field. It’s not an area that we get a chance to take a look at too closely, since they’re a little different from your traditional enterprise market, but the solutions available for the medical arena really deserve some attention since lives are in the balance.

The speakers reccurringly brought up the fact that poor bookeeping not only results in return visits, but even mortalities. With clearer communication, better data and closer links to patients, hospitals and other health organizations have a lot to gain from a strong mobility strategy. My general impression, however, was that most hospitals still use pagers and paper records for the majority of their work, resulting in lots of lost time. One of the case studies mentioned that under the old model, it would take an average of 33 minutes to “close the loop” (i.e. have a returning patient meet with their doctor at a hospital, who would have their records in hand and know the situation); apparently with BlackBerrys, they’ve managed to shave that down to 11 minutes. There’s money to be saved too, of course -  a home care firm based in the UK has saved upwards of $150 k/year by optimizing the information flow to their mobile workforce.

BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) remains the ideal solution for these organizations because of the patient records involved – the BES back-end has all the security needed to stay compliant with most national privacy standards. Bluetooth connectivity means accessories can take all sorts of readings, like weight, blood sugar, blood pressure, the whole shebang. Other, lower-tech solutions that rely on reporting results by, say, SMS has the added risk of a patient being dishonest, or miscalculating, or simply mistyping. Passive, instrumented data entry also makes the whole process more painless for remote patients – the more seamlessly information can be collected, the less smothered patients will feel by docs breathing down their neck for information.

The possibilities for multimedia are also being explored: the BlackBerry camera is good enough for ambulances to shoot over pictures of a burn victim to their destination hospital and allow for triage before they even arrive. There was even mention of a research project that was attempting to get a low-grade microscope attachment for mobile cameras that would allow users to detect diseases with larger cells, like malaria and TB. A cool idea, and we’ll definitely have to keep our eye out for it.

If you’re in the health industry, take a look at just some of the solutions that are out there for BlackBerry.

WIC Pager – Allows for better paging, better responses, and better auditing.
Vocera – Mentioned during today’s keynote, cool accessory that lets you issue voice commands for mobile connectivity.
mVisum – Accurately shows visual data like x-rays, EKGs and more on BlackBerry.
Clinical Xpert Navigator – Remote access to patient files.