Network Infrastructure & Device Management

mHIMSS tracks at HIMSS12 attract large audiences February 22, 2012 | Eric Wicklund Standing-room-only crowds attend the first mHIMSS-themed sessions Tuesday at the HIMSS12 Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas, including a session explaining how a New York-based healthcare system developed a basic mobile platform for its physicians. More

Qualcomm shows off Qualcomm Life, 2net hub at HIMSS12 February 21, 2012 | Eric Wicklund Unveiled at last year's mHealth Summit, the San Diego-based telecommunications company's healthcare division now has partnerships in place with more than 50 mHealth vendors and providers. More

BoxTone, Verizon, Motorola launch platform for Android-based devices February 20, 2012 | Eric Wicklund The new platform aims to enable healthcare providers to push their services out into the field – whether it be a homecare agency, a remote clinic or the battlefield – through Android-based smartphones and tablets. More

ONC launches app challenge to aid people with disabilities February 14, 2012 | Bernie Monegain Federal officials say mobile tools can be used to help those with disabilities gain access to their medical records as well as other health and wellness resources. More

Ottawa Hospital's CIO explains his iPad program February 7, 2012 | Dale Potter While hospital executives decide whether to allow physicians to bring in their own mobile devices or set restrictions, Ottawa Hospital CIO Dale Potter explains how he decided to equip his staff with iPads. More

Mobile healthcare at HIMSS12: Usability, workflow and innovation February 7, 2012 | Jonathon Dreyer With HIMSS12 less than two weeks away, Nuance Healthcare's Jonathon Dreyer takes a look at several mHealth themes that are expected to dominate the discussion in Las Vegas. More

Spyglass study: Physicians need more out of mobile technology February 1, 2012 | Eric Wicklund A new survey indicates physicians are embracing mobile devices, but don't think they're sophisticated enough yet to improve workflows and change the healthcare landscape. More

Five key considerations for healthcare facilities before moving to the cloud January 26, 2012 | James Whitemore Thinking of migrating your healthcare data into the cloud? James Whitemore of Smoothstone IP Communications has created a checklist for deciding whether that's a good move for your organization. More

Intermountain chooses Kony Solutions to develop mobile app platform January 25, 2012 | Eric Wicklund The Salt Lake City-based health system will use Kony's new KonyOne 4.0 platform to develop apps for physicians, nurses, clinical care, patients and health plan members. More

Despite backlash, SOPA, PIPA give healthcare execs something to think about January 24, 2012 | Eric Wicklund The controversial Internet piracy bills may be doomed to defeat in Washington, but their impact shouldn't be overlooked in mobile healthcare circles. More

New business offers to match providers with the appropriate telehealth programs January 19, 2012 | Eric Wicklund Advanced TeleHealth Services plans to 'match, monitor and manage' the telehealth process for a wide range of providers, ranging from hospitals and home health agencies to large companies with their own wellness plans. More

Mobile technology supports collaboration among providers, payers and patients January 18, 2012 | David Kates David Kates, vice president of product management and clinical strategy at NaviNet, says mobile technology is an immediate and effective tool in the transformation of the nation's healthcare system. More

Identifying the challenges and opportunities in mobility February 15, 2012 | Rob Shaughnessy Over the last six months I've had the pleasure of talking to many professionals leading mobile initiatives – from global telecommunications companies concerned with the impact mobile computing is having on their infrastructures to small companies looking to leverage the hundreds of thousands of mobile applications available from the many public and private app stores. From the largest to the smallest, there are very common themes in the challenges being faced. More

Bring your own device (BYOD) to work - should we even go there? February 3, 2012 | Farida Bambot Technology-savvy consumers are clamoring for the convenience of the “coolest” mobility devices in the workplace. More

Managing the mobile workforce February 2, 2012 | Christina Thielst Mobile Health (mHealth) also involves managing the mobile workforce, but I don't often hear this administrative function being discussed. More

Five reasons why patients with implantable defibrillators deserve their data January 26, 2012 | David Lee Scher, MD The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was signed into law on Feb. 17, 2009. More

The top three barriers to telehealth adoption January 4, 2012 | Andrew R. Watson, MD Twenty years ago, telehealth was on the cusp of revolutionizing care delivery. Back then, substantial barriers existed – technological, cultural and financial – yet most industry visionaries were confident that telehealth would be adopted sooner, rather than later. More

Mobile-enabled, HIPAA-compliant December 23, 2011 | Sanjay Pingle There's no question that mobile apps have the potential to improve patient care. More

Is disruption of mainstream healthcare the answer to our crisis? December 20, 2011 | Joseph C. Kvedar, MD Joseph Kvedar, of Partners Healthcare and the Center for Connected Health, talks about disruptive innovations in healthcare. More

4 Factors Driving Hospital Satellite Emergency Department Development July 5, 2011 | James Ellis and Aaron Razavi The satellite emergency department market is doing well, and from what I have seen, as attractive to patients as hospitals looking to implement them. Satellite emergency clinics are much what they sound like: a remote facility, often time located off campus from the hospital, which perform very similar types of services as a hospital emergency room. More

mHealth in the Enterprise Set to Explode November 22, 2010 | John Moore The rapid adoption of smartphones and now touch-screen tablets (e.g., iPad) by clinicians will trigger enormous growth in the use of mHealth Apps within healthcare enterprises, with the market for mHealth in the enterprise projected to reach $1.7B by end of year 2014. More

GW + PHONES = HOPE December 15, 2011 | mHIMSS More

Toward an mHealth Ecosystem: Extending Access, Remote Connectivity and Engagement January 9, 2012 | mHIMSS According to the CDC and NIH, over 50 percent of the factors related to personal health can be traced to lifestyle choices, while only 10 percent is related to the medical care system. This finding illustrates a stark truth: the US healthcare system in its current incarnation, a system of facility based, episodic care, is insufficient to the task of improving population health. More

Ten Predictions for 2012 on Smartphones in Hospitals January 3, 2012 | mHIMSS With emerging capabilities far beyond phone calls, email, and even access to medical apps, smartphones have kicked off a communications revolution. Given this changing environment, we assembled a roundtable of industry and technology experts to compile this list of what 2012 will mean for smartphone use in hospitals. More

Unique Challenges of Health Care Networks and the Value of Wireless November 29, 2011 | mHIMSS Medical applications are among the most demanding users of network capacity, real-time performance, mission-critical reliability, and data security. Hospitals and medical centers are accelerating the pace of accessing and storing patient records via EMRs. Considering that data centers storing these records are often not connected to the main hospital, or medical office building, all this adds up to an explosion of information straining existing network infrastructure. More

Cutting Through the Hype: Evaluating Tablet PCs for Point-of-Care Productivity November 29, 2011 | mHIMSS Tablet PCs are more popular than ever. They're mobile, powerful and proven to help clinicians enhance productivity and efficiency. However, with more tablet PCs available than ever before, how do you choose the right tablet PC for your workflow? More

Providing Wireless Technology for Healthcare Transformation November 29, 2011 | mHIMSS The U.S. healthcare industry is undergoing a game-changing transformation in the way it delivers care. The “meaningful use” requirements under the HITECH Act, the new payment and delivery reform model under the PPACA and the consumer movement are all converging to help create a system that improves the quality of care and clinical outcomes, drives workflow efficiencies, and reduces and manages cost. Forward-thinking healthcare providers, payers and suppliers are taking up the challenge and looking to health IT to enable the new delivery system. Healthcare stakeholders are embracing mobility technology as a viable solution. More

Defining an EMR and HIE Strategy for Medical Imaging November 29, 2011 | mHIMSS Healthcare organizations are seeking to deliver a robust EMR that’s accessible from multiple points of care. It’s what your patient and medical communities are loudly demanding - with the goal of gaining increased access to patient medical records, and enhanced capabilities with the records themselves. One vital component of an EMR is often overlooked: feature-rich, easy access to integrated, patient-centric, archived medical imaging records. More

Healthcare Information at Risk: The Consumerization of Mobile Devices November 22, 2011 | mHIMSS The consumerization of mobile devices, also known as bring your own device, (BYOD) is a major trent affecting healthcare. This invobvles healthcare workers using personal mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, to access applications that enable them to deliver care whenever and wherever it is needed. More

Using mHealth to Work Smarter: Increasing Efficiency for Clinicians and Health Workers November 22, 2011 | mHIMSS Successful mHealth deployment should include matching the right mobile device to the user’s tasks and workflow requirements. More

National Broadband Plan: Ch. 10 on Healthcare November 17, 2011 | mHIMSS Broadband is not a panacea. However, there is a developing set of broadband-enabled solutions that can play an important role in the transformation required to address these issues. These solutions, usually grouped under the name health information technology (IT), offer the potential to improve health care outcomes while simultaneously controlling costs and extending the reach of the limited pool of health care professionals. More

Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Device Isolation Architecture Guide V2.0 November 17, 2011 | mHIMSS The purpose of this document is to provide a standard process for isolating and securing networked medical devices using a protected Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) structure. This document’s target audience includes VA OI&T Network staff, OI&T Information Security Officers ISO, and Biomedical Engineers. More

RFID SOLUTIONS FOR HEALTHCARE REDUCING COSTS AND IMPROVING OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY November 16, 2011 | mHIMSS A wheel chair costs about $150, but in a week, a hospital’s staff can spend up to $7,000 in clinical time just searching for one. Nearly 90% of all hospital patients will require an IV, but overstocking to compensate for lost or misplaced infusion pumps can cost the typical hospital $150,000 or more annually. A hospital bed runs about $1,200. What does it cost if each patient spends just one extra hour in a heavy resource use area like the emergency department or the ICU, waiting for that empty bed to be reported as available? More

Driving Innovation: The Wireless LAN in Healthcare November 16, 2011 | mHIMSS Mobile technology and WLAN solutions promise to transform the healthcare industry – Patient-centered care, e-pharmacy, asset tracking, mobile voice and rich media systems are just a few of the solutions that are enabled by WLAN technology. More

MidMichigan Health: Health System Improves Efficiency, Clinician Experience and Face Time with Patients January 4, 2012 | mHIMSS Based in Midland, Michigan, MidMichigan Health is a nonprofit health system serving a 12-county region with 481 hospital beds at four medical centers and several outpatient facilities, urgent-care centers, nursing homes, medical offices and other locations. MidMichigan relies on instant access to allow clinicians to badge in and out of the EMR system on a network of thin-client devices placed at the points of care delivery. This solution reduces costs and makes it fast and easy for clinicians at MidMichigan to access medical records and healthcare applications so they can spend more time with patients. More

Prairie North Health Region: IT Department Delivers Cost Savings and Improved Services with Virtualization September 6, 2011 | mHIMSS Prairie North Health Region is located in the northwest part of central Saskatchewan, and covers 29,951 square kilometers (11,564 square miles), an area a bit larger than the U.S. state of Vermont. By using virtualization, the IT department of the Prairie North Health Region has consolidated its server environment, reducing its hardware and power costs. And now, Prairie North has embarked on another virtualization initiative. It is leveraging a desktop virtualization solution to lower costs while improving the performance and availability of its desktop computing services—as well as those of neighboring regions. More

McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital: A Community Healthcare Network Reduces IT Administration Burdens and Accelerates Patient Care September 6, 2011 | mHIMSS McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital offers a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services from its main hospital in Oxford, Ohio and through a network of satellite facilities. The largest of these, Ross Medical Center, offers imaging services, lab tests, physical therapy and rehabilitation, and is southern Ohio‘s only certified Category 1 urgent care center. The IT team at Ross has virtualized 90 percent of their +86 servers and replaced more than half of their aging desktop PCs with low-cost thin clients - achieving dramatic cost savings while improving the productivity of clinicians and IT administrators alike. More

Norman Regional Health Systems: How they Simplified Administration while Providing Practitioners with Better Access to Patient Data September 6, 2011 | mHIMSS Norman Regional Health System, a multi-campus hospital serving south central Oklahoma, built the Norman Regional HealthPlex, a 152-bed, state-of- the-art specialty hospital. They wanted to make sure everything about it was cutting-edge, including the desktop environment. As part of this vision, Norman Regional Health selected a virtualization solutions to provide doctors, nurses, and other staff with ready access to clinical applications, such as Meditech, or to imaging servers with X-rays, MRIs, and other medical images. Norman now has a scalable, flexible desktop environment that simplifies administration while providing health practitioners with better access to applications and patient data. More

Advances in Wireless Technologies for Healthcare: Do’s and Don’ts of Medical Device Integration February 16, 2012 | mHIMSS Medical devices can no longer be seen as standalone components and have been targeted in Meaningful Use Phase 3 as a potential integration point. Creating connected devices, especially wireless ones, is a major requirement for most manufacturers but are not easy to architect because many medical devices are still based on traditional proprietary communication technologies and integration is notoriously difficult. Join device connectivity expert and software architect Shahid Shah to learn some practical "do's and dont's" of medical device to health IT software connectivity. More

Secure the Right Wireless Tools at the PoC February 6, 2012 | mHIMSS Highly sophisticated Point of Care solutions and mobile wireless devices are transforming the way medicine is delivered and revolutionizing patient-caregiver interaction. But this puts additional pressure on hospital IT professionals. They must ensure secure remote access to networks while safeguarding against data corruption, theft and other threats. Join CDW Healthcare and HIMSS to learn about the steps to support the latest mobile wireless devices. More

Mobility for Healthcare: The Choices and Challenges February 6, 2012 | mHIMSS Mobility in health care has been much hyped, but the industry is still underestimating its value to enable business process management. This webinar looks at the degree of expectation and adoption of mobile computing as well as the challenges of rapidly advancing technology and the difficult issues of security and management. More

Wireless/Wired Networks Purpose Built for Clinical Workflows February 3, 2012 | mHIMSS Perceived success for EMR initiatives depends on your clinician’s user experience. This webinar will focus on wired/wireless networking best practices from Western Maryland Health System and Memorial Health Systems of East Texas to implement a purpose built network supporting healthcare clinical workflows and guaranteeing SLAs for consistent and secure access to clinical applications. More

Telehealth: Get the Communications-Enabled Applications Advantage January 17, 2012 | mHIMSS In this webinar, see how Florida Hospital, a 2200 bed multi facility used a deployment of new clinical applications and technologies to improved throughput for Patient Flow; improved Patient Outcomes and Patient Safety with mobile information delivery for patient care and improved utilization and productivity enabling mobile staff with better communications tools. More

Advances in Wireless Technologies for Healthcare - The 5 Do’s and Don’ts to Create a Safety-Critical Wireless Network January 16, 2012 | mHIMSS In this presentation you’ll learn: • What the different requirements between the various wireless environments are and how the right strategy can make you more successful. • How deploying your wireless network to support safety-critical applications will benefit all applications and services on the wireless network. • How you can learn from “best practice” standards, reference architectures and approaches that are being used in the most successful implementations. More

mHealth: Connecting the Inpatient and Outpatient Landscape November 29, 2011 | mHIMSS Current Healthcare delivery models are expensive, fragmented, and error prone. Communication between providers in disparate delivery settings is often haphazard at best. Mobile point of care technologies (mHealth) and HIT infrastructures are helping that to change. This webinar will help you understand how mobile technologies can safely and securely help all caregivers (Physicians, Nurses, Community Care Workers, First Responders) improve care delivery as patients transition thru various care settings (home, clinic, home). We will review the evidence and hear examples of how care coordination workflows can improve outcomes. You will better understand the mHealth tools that can best assist with care coordination in various settings. More

Securely Manage Mobile Medical Devices & Apps: A Healthcare IT Network How To Guide November 21, 2011 | mHIMSS Healthcare IT needs an automated framework for secure device provisioning, app development and deployment, compliance monitoring, ongoing support, change management and retirement. Ideally the same systems would also provide "reasonable safeguards" for the protection of ePHI sent, received or stored by a mobile device in accord with HIPAA guidelines. This Webinar will focus on today's best practices for full lifecycle mobile management. More

iPhones, iPads and HIPAA Compliance: A How To Guide November 17, 2011 | mHIMSS Devices like the iPhone and iPad are becoming incredibly popular with doctors and other healthcare professionals. But whether they are hospital issued -- or owned by the worker -- IT must ensure that Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) that is stored, accessed, transmitted or received by a mobile device is secured and protected in accordance with HIPAA guidelines. More

Improving mobility in healthcare through pervasive wireless coverage November 16, 2011 | mHIMSS Mobility is driving the need for wireless voice, data and clinical services in healthcare. Learn how hospitals leverage their wireless infrastructure to deliver reliable WWAN and WLAN services to their customers. More

Ubiquitous Wireless Enables All-Private Room Critical Care Hospital November 16, 2011 | mHIMSS This webinar will focus on VCUHS' (Virginia Commonwealth University Health System) new 275-bed all private room critical care hospital and how a unified wireless infrastructure provides caregivers a virtual link for everything from remote communication of bedside alarms to physician access to the EHR. More

Healthier Wi-Fi for Hospitals November 16, 2011 | mHIMSS With so many new high-powered handheld devices hitting the market and new medical applications utilizing wireless within the healthcare industry,Wi-Fi is no longer a considered a technology of convenience but expected to be a reliable and ubiquitous medium. More

Video Presentations from The 2011 mHealth Summit, December 5 - 7 2011 January 18, 2012 | mHIMSS This webpage hosts all of the video presentations from the The 2011 mHealth Summit, December 5 - 7 2011. More

How to Achieve 24 x7 Healthcare IT Security November 22, 2011 | mHIMSS Imagine sitting halfway around the world and checking a patient's medical records remotely, and securely, without worrying about compromising sensitive data. Possible? It's happening today with some of the country's leading healthcare providers because of advancements in data encryption, cloud computing and wireless mobility. Meet Alex Romillo, Chief Information Officer at Health Choice Networks. He oversees network security for 37 medical centers in eight states. More

Wireless System Fits the Bill November 22, 2011 | mHIMSS HealthAlliance, a Most Wireless Award winner, uses a single-antennae system as the backbone of its secure wireless network that connects multiple mobile devices in its facility. More

Expanding Broadband for Healthcare November 17, 2011 | mHIMSS A Presentation to the HIMSS Ambulatory Roundtable by Kerry McDermott, Director, Healthcare, Federal Communications Commission More

Leveraging Unified Communications to Improve Clinical Workflow November 15, 2011 | mHIMSS Unified communications(UC) is the integration of real‐time communication services such asinstant messaging(chat),presence information,IP telephony,video conferencing,call controlandspeech recognitionwith non real‐time communication services such asunified messaging(integratedvoicemail,e‐mail,SMSandfax). UC is not a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types. More

Definitions of mHealth January 5, 2012 | mHIMSS A collection of mHealth definitions from key healthcare organizations. More

Open mHealth November 17, 2011 | mHIMSS Mobile phones are proximate, personalized, and affordable. By continuously interacting with and measuring user activity, they can support chronic disease prevention and management as part of daily life, 24x7. More

Mobile Device Functionality: Mobile OS Comparison Matrix February 11, 2012 | Todd MacCallum The first in a series of reports, author Todd MacCallum provides an overview of mobile device operating systems. Covered in the comparisons are topics such as active directory integration, data encryption, and support for virtual applications. More

Glossary of Terms February 6, 2012 | mHIMSS More

mHealth: FROM SMART PHONES TO SMART SYSTEMS January 31, 2012 | mHIMSS Click on the book cover to preview a chapter from the new book mHealth: FROM SMART PHONES TO SMART SYSTEMS More

5 FAQ's on SMS (Short Message Service) Text Messaging Implementation in Healthcare January 11, 2012 | mHIMSS This FAQ address common questions when implementing SMS (text) messaging within a clinical environment. The FAQ addresses important information related to privacy and security, implementation, and post implementation support related to texting. More

GW + PHONES = HOPE December 15, 2011 | mHIMSS As the host of the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) Meeting, GW will be the first to make a 2012 CGI U Commitment to Action – a concrete plan to address a major global challenge – by collecting 20,000 used cell phones and portable electronics by March 2012 to be recycled to fund maternal and child health mobile technology projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nepal. More

Preparing a Mobility Strategy for Healthcare December 1, 2011 | mHIMSS A presentation from emids. More

Mobile Enterprise: Wireless Solutions from the C-Suite to the Field, (mobileenterprise.edgl.com) November 23, 2011 | mHIMSS Wireless and Mobile whitepaper library More