Wireless VoIP benefits being frustrated in healthcare: study

How emerging wireless techs are transforming healthcare

To realize the benefits, healthcare organizations need to take an enterprise-wide approach to wireless infrastructure and mobile devices, and to involve nurses early in the planning stages, the study concludes.

The report, "Point of Care Communications for Nursing," is based on 100 in-depth interviews with nurses in home health and acute care facilities. The interviews covered existing workflow bottlenecks and inefficiencies in communications with patients and other staff, how mobile devices and systems are actually being used, and barriers to wider adoption of these technologies, according to Gregg Malkary, managing director for Spyglass.

The results are not encouraging. Sixty-six percent of the hospital-based nurses say their organizations have deployed VoIP communications. But 71% say the wireless networks are poorly designed: there are coverage gaps, interference and overloaded access points. Data and voice connections often get dropped.

Concerns over the cost of such deployments often results in limiting them to one or a few specific hospital departments, and VoIP handsets are in short supply.