As Heard on National Public Radio

We’ve blogged a lot this year about smartphone usage in healthcare. It’s an evolving communications platform that more and more hospitals are using in daily care delivery and it has even attracted the attention of National Public Radio (NPR). This week, NPR highlighted this topic in their Morning Edition segment Are Pagers Obsolete? and we are pleased to be a part of the story.

Despite their decline in most other sectors, pagers remain an important piece of healthcare communications with an estimated 90% of hospitals in the country using paging systems. Traditional pagers are simple to use and typically transmit data not sensitive enough to require encryption.

With smartphones, hospitals need data encryption to be HIPAA and HITECH compliant because of the nature of patient information being transmitted among staff. As opposed to pagers, smartphones offer faster communications by eliminating call-backs and with the right communications platform they can also provide invaluable message tracking for audits. Brian Edds, Amcom Director of Product Management, also noted in the NPR podcast, “Doctors don’t want to carry a pager anymore. They want to carry their iPhone or their Android device.”

We see continued demand for both devices and anticipate that paging systems and encrypted smartphone communications will co-exist in the healthcare space for the foreseeable future. As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Amcom Releases New Version of Critical Test Results Management Solution

In early May, we acquired the Critical Test Results Management solution from IMCO Technologies. We quickly brought this into the fold of the full Amcom product suite and are excited to announce the release of version 5.0 of the Amcom Critical Test Results Management solution. We’re pleased that so many of the hospitals we’ve spoken with are excited to embrace this new functionality within the spectrum of their clinical communications to improve patient care and physician productivity.

Amcom Critical Test Results Management is the only solution of its kind to be cleared by the FDA as a class II medical device, and this enhanced version includes important features to help hospitals in their efforts to improve care and comply with industry mandates.

Highlights of Amcom Critical Test Results Management Version 5.0:

• Integration with Amcom Mobile Connect® helps hospitals achieve traceable, encrypted smartphone and tablet communications in accordance with HIPAA and Joint Commission guidelines.
• The new Emergency Department Discrepancy Module can help identify and communicate any differences between the preliminary diagnosis done by the Emergency Department and the final diagnosis done by Radiology.
• The updated user interface is now similar to Amcom’s broad suite of products to improve ease of use among Amcom’s hundreds of hospital customers. Learn more about the Amcom Critical Test Results Management solution.

Learn more about the Amcom Critical Test Results Management solution.

Smartphone Communications Continue to Soar

So far in 2012 we’ve seen more and more companies making the move to encrypted, traceable smartphone and tablet communications. Many of these organizations are focused on developing their mobile device strategies and keeping in compliance with guidelines from HIPAA and the HITECH Act. Many want to improve how their physicians and nurses communicate no matter where they are. All want to help speed and improve patient care while making it easier for staff to do their jobs efficiently.

In the stories below you can hear more about how these notable hospitals are implementing Amcom Mobile Connect for their patients and staff:

• St. Michael’s Hospital – Toronto
• Winter Haven Hospital – Winter Haven, Fla.
• Kosair Children’s Hospital (part of Norton Healthcare) – Louisville, Ky.
• Fairview Health Services – Minneapolis, Minn.
• Rockingham Memorial Hospital – Harrisonburg, Va.

We’re thrilled to be working with these and many other hospitals as they use the latest mobile communications in smart—and secure—ways.

Comments?

Amcom Acquires Critical Test Results Management Solution

We are thrilled to announce that Amcom has acquired the IMCO Technologies’ critical test results management suite! Our customers have increasingly requested functionality for the management of critical test results to meet the guidelines established by the Joint Commission in its National Patient Safety Goal Requirements.

Now our hospital customers can improve patient safety and caregiver productivity by streamlining the delivery of this information to ordering physicians. As an example, this solution can be integrated tightly with RIS/PACS systems, offering far better workflows for radiologists.

The newly renamed Amcom Critical Test Results Management solution brings together once-disparate pieces of information essential to the effective sending of test results to the clinicians who ordered them. In particular, the new solution will integrate the critical test results functionality from IMCO with Amcom’s suite of communication workflow solutions, including the Amcom Mobile Connect™ smartphone and tablet messaging application. This means physicians will be able to receive these results on their preferred mobile devices no matter where they are, speeding patient care. We’ll talk more in the future about the integration between Amcom Mobile Connect and this new Amcom Critical Test Results Management piece.

We’d love to hear your comments. You can also learn more about the product on our web site.

Hospitals Continue to Turn to Smartphone Communications in Lieu of Pagers

While it’s hardly news that smartphones are continuing to make inroads in hospitals, many of the stories focus on organizations incorporating these devices alongside existing communications tools like pagers, Wi-Fi phones and the like. But at Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, the team is considering going full-force with smartphones and retiring their pagers.

WUWM 89.7 FM - Milwaukee Public Radio recently did an article on this organization’s use of smartphone messaging and the importance of closed-loop communications. They highlight their ability to coordinate care faster while adhering to security steps for messages and devices.

Check out the article.

Learn about Amcom’s smartphone communication capabilities.

Any comments about what’s new with smartphone use at your healthcare organization?