Considerations for Deploying Mobile Devices in Healthcare

Kathleen Gaffney
Feb 7, 2019
3 min read

Updated: Apr 25, 2022

February 7, 2019

Mobile computing devices, such as smart phones, allow nurses and other clinical personnel to communicate and access data and information from anywhere and can offer significant benefit to clinicians and patients in healthcare facilities. Mobile devices can improve staff productivity, enhance inter-professional communication, speed the delivery of care, allow nurses to spend more time with patients, and has been shown to improve patient care and satisfaction.

Which is why mobility has become a key initiative in healthcare. One of Dimension Data’s partners, Zebra ®, commissioned “The Future of Healthcare: 2022 Hospital Vision Study”. The study showed that 64% of nurses currently use mobile devices and that usage will grow to 97% by 2022. Another 2018 survey, “The Impact of Mobile Devices on Hospital Patient Satisfaction” results show that of those surveyed, 90% said their organization has implemented, or is planning to implement, a mobile device initiative as a means to improve patient care, facilitate efficiencies within care teams, or both.

Evaluation and Planning Considerations

Align key stakeholders to the project - nursing, IT and administrators
Include key stakeholders and end users when making decisions regarding mobile strategy, mobile device selection, graphical user interface on the device, required features, functions and apps on the devices, and end user testing of devices
Develop a Mobile Strategy based on:
How mobile devices will be used in patient care to access, receive, transmit or store patient health information
Identified opportunities to improve clinical process, communication and efficiency through process redesign
Desired functionality; voice, messaging, push-to-talk, scanning, photos, view and/or documenting EMR, access to medical calculators or reference guides, etc.
Integration with solutions; EMR, Mobility, Alarm and Alert Management, NurseCall, etc.
Goals, objectives, expected ROI for Mobility
Budget and priorities
Validate infrastructure necessary to support and grow mobility; including Wi-Fi and cellular connections
Assess current infrastructure’s ability to support the smart devices; reliable, sufficient coverage to support mobile devices
Identify the infrastructure and supporting technologies needed
Develop remediation plan for Wi-Fi, QoS, prioritization, integrations, etc.
Remediate and optimize infrastructure
Determine preferred mobile device(s) based on:
Desired mobile operating system; Apple iOS, Google Android OS or Microsoft Windows Phone
Use cases, network connections, dimensions, weight, screen size, keypad, processing power, camera resolution, ruggedness, suitability to healthcare environment, voice and audio, etc.
Sled (phone case) to house the mobile device; for protection and ergonomics, additional device functionality such as extended battery life, barcode scanning, phone charging, etc.
Charging base station(s) requirements
Determine future communication pathways, workflows, features and functions, solutions and applications
Identify existing communication pathways, workflows and phone features and functions – clinicians will not want to lose any existing features and functions when moving to a new device
Identify additional desired workflows, phone features and functions, applications and solutions needed to enable key communications and patient care
Determine if there is a need to undergo a HIPAA assessment
Communicate to staff about the Mobile Device initiative

Build Considerations

Update the organization's mobile device policies and procedures for safeguarding health information
Identify the Mobile Device Management (MDM) product to provide:
Software distribution
Policy management
Inventory management
Security management
Service management
Create a configuration that’s optimized for the clinician use case including:
Design of the wallpaper / background
Appropriate apps
Defining home screen and other screen layouts
Contacts (call groups) and directory
Designating use of soft and hard buttons
Disabling unneeded features, etc.
Utilize MDM to:
Enroll devices
Wirelessly configure and update settings
Establish policies
Deploy and manage apps
Query location of device
Remotely wipe or lock managed devices
Perform mobile device testing and validate with key sponsors and end users