Publication by Healthcare Purchasing News
When fictional industrialist Diet Smith introduced to Dick Tracy in his eponymous comic strip the “2-Way Wrist Radio” in 1946 and then the “2-Way Wrist TV” in 1964, he might have envisioned physicians sending prescriptions to pharmacies, radiologists reading X-ray images and supply chain managers monitoring inventory locations and tracking individual products remotely via mobile devices.
Today, more than a half-century after Smith’s futuristic inventions made the funny pages, healthcare organizations employ mobile tech for a variety of communications, electronic interactions, and tracking and tracing functions. They include identifying patients and linking those patients to the proper clinical procedures and products used on them, tracking and managing access to and usage of medical/surgical and pharmaceutical products and equipment, tracking specimens for the laboratory, and transmitting data to electronic health records and billing.
Mobile tools employed by clinicians and administrators run the gamut between hand-held computers and mobile readers, including smart phones, wrist-mounted devices and electronic eyewear that can project images and instructions via online/wi-fi-enabled chips.
In short, if mobile capabilities represent the future of healthcare interoperability, then welcome to the future. Clinical and supply chain operations continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, leaping over broken barriers even as they face and strive to be at least one step ahead of ongoing issues with security concerns.
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