Health Care Goes Mobile

Imagine a world with less paperwork, real-time access to patient data, improved workflow, and enhanced outcomes. A world where clinicians have personal digital assistants (PDAs), receive consultative services through electronic intensive care units (eICUs), and remotely monitor the care of isolated patients in the comfort of their homes.

If you think this sounds like something from a futuristic novel, you couldn't be farther from the truth. Today, in many healthcare facilities across the nation, nurses in clinical practice no longer need to return to a central location to access patients' medical records, know individuals' current status, or check the most recent physicians' orders. Administrators are maintaining information by using database management tools, and educators are in the midst of technology driven instruction with online classes using the Internet.

Practicing clinicians are utilizing wireless technology to save time, money, and lives - and as a healthcare traveler, you have the unique opportunity to encounter this cutting-edge phenomenon firsthand. By choosing assignments with technology in mind, you not only can practice in exciting and challenging environments, but also become involved in the birth of new care delivery and case management systems. Adding to your already extensive knowledgebase, this experience can enhance your marketability and increase your value as a consultant to institutions nationwide.

WHAT IS WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY?
Wireless technology is a communication system in which electromagnetic waves carry signals across airwaves rather than over a cable, for the purpose of obtaining or sending information and/or services. Three types exist: fixed wireless (radio antennae), mobile wireless (cellular phones), and satellite.

Many recent technological advances are boons to this concept. The decrease in weight and size of mobile and hand-held devices, as well as reductions in equipment costs and the integration of browser-based applications, are making web-based applications more useful for physicians and nurses.