The Growth and Influence of Tablets in Healthcare
Tablets are changing the nature of healthcare delivery and overturning concepts of how clinicians will use technology. The ability to gather and access information with the touch of a fingertip, and carry it around wherever you go, is invaluable for those working in this sector and a trend that is transforming the industry as we speak.
The mobility required by medical professionals makes tablets in healthcare a natural fit. The long battery life, multi-touch interfaces, light weight and computing power of these mobile devices are a few of the main reasons why healthcare organizations are acquiring tablets for their employees. The rapid adoption of tablets has put pressure on the healthcare industry to evolve and truly embrace this new technology in order to keep up.
There are several factors driving the change in how the business and processes run inside healthcare organizations. Healthcare organizations are moving from traditional methods of information collection and retrieval to mobile and on-demand collection, retrieval, collaboration and communication. Some of these changes are being driven by the doctors, some by patients and others by pharmacies. On the provider side, no hospital or healthcare provider wants to be tagged as laggard and outdated in terms of technology adoption, which is causing these institutions to embrace tablets.
Key Advantages
• Eliminate the need to record information on paper and enter into systems. This saves time, energy, money and improves efficiency.
• Provide rapid access to information wherever healthcare personnel need it.
• Voice, video, image and text capabilities can be leveraged to record and provide on-demand information.
• Allow doctors, nurses and other healthcare personnel to communicate virtually and more effectively.
• Eliminate human introduced errors by feeding in data form patient care systems.
What does the future hold?
Tablets are gaining popularity in the healthcare sector across all segments. With doctors increasingly using their own tablets to manage and maintain their schedules, dictations, reminders and more, the healthcare organizations are now forced on building applications that are optimized for tablets. These applications provide the integration of existing information systems, and introduce tablets as a form for both data gathering and distribution of critical information.
Increasingly sophisticated apps are being created, which cater to all aspects of healthcare management. These apps range from providing dashboards for patient information, disease and condition monitoring, to patient data collection and consolidation. Apps also help with business analytics, scheduling, communication, dictation, speech recognition and more. In terms of tablet adoption in the healthcare industry, we have only begun to scratch the surface. With technology constantly advancing, the possibilities are endless as healthcare professionals continue to search for better ways to provide care.
Want to know more? Leave a comment and let us know!