New Findings on the Diversity of Devices

We’ve talked about this important topic previously, but now we have an even clearer picture of what’s happening out in the industry. Based on the results of a hospital communications survey we performed (access survey here), hospitals are currently using 5.8 different devices on average within their facilities to communicate with users. Using pagers alone is not enough anymore.

We discovered within the 300+ healthcare organizations surveyed that healthcare organizations need to communicate with a variety of devices, including pagers, smartphones, traditional cell and desk phones, Wi-Fi phones, Vocera badges, email systems, tablets, and more. In fact, different staff members tend to need different things. Nurses often rely on Wi-Fi phones, housekeeping on pagers, and physicians on smartphones. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Our research actually shows that hospitals will become more diverse in the number of devices they use in the future rather than less. But as long as messages reach the right people on the right devices at the right time, patient safety standards can be protected and staff can be satisfied. You should be able to send a notification from a single system and reach all message recipients simultaneously, regardless of the devices that they carry.

What’s happening in your organization as far as device use?

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.