With HIMSS rapidly approaching, a new alliance between mobile health company Voalte and Motorola offers an interesting wrinkle to the ongoing Bring Your Own Device condundrum confronting hospitals. The deal expands Voalte’s customer base to Android customers through Motorola’s MC40 HC mobile phone. Although its platform was initially restricted to Blackberry in 2008, it has since upgraded its customers to iPhone.
Voalte’s platform is designed to improve communication between nurse-led care teams and to ensure that patient care doesn’t suffer when there are shift changes and patients get handed off to the next shift of nurses. The phone’s 2D bar code is intended to be a response to the practice of scanning medications and patients’ ID bands to reduce medical errors. The company also helps update providers’ Wi-Fi coverage. Its platform integrates phone calls, alarms and alerts, and shows users which clinical care team members are available.
An ECRI report cited communication breakdowns as the biggest source of reported sentinel events in hospitals, and can include things like missed medication, injuries from falls and life-threatening situations for patients. Those communication breakdowns also include hand-offs and telephone orders.
Many companies have developed their own approaches to switching out the much-abused pager with other communication tools. But the desire by medical staff to use their own mobile devices bumps up against HIPAA compliance which frowns on this practice because it jeopardizes the security of patient information. Mobile health companies such as TigerText are helping to provide compromises between using personal devices and making communication more secure.
