Using Mobile Applications to Increase Hospital Productivity

Since Apple launched the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010, mobile applications have significantly increased the productivity of medical professionals as well as back office operations personnel. However, the most significant mobile app innovations in healthcare are yet to be realized. We will review some ways that mobile apps are improving healthcare operations today, and how they may be improved in the future.

Mobile Applications in the Hospital Front Office

Mobile Applications in the Hospital Back Office

Mobile Applications in the Cloud for Patients

Any person—regardless of age, location or socioeconomic status—could be "wired" and monitored. Some of this information could be maintained locally for managing and monitoring chronic diseases. Some data can be uploaded to the cloud for analysis to identify patterns and trends to contain the spread and incidence of diseases. Some examples are:

• Painlessly and frequently monitoring blood sugar for chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
• Continuous heart monitoring for heart disease. Analyze heart data in real time and predict heart failure and warn with text message, "Call 911 or Immediately Go to Hospital."
• Real time blood screening for Zika or West Nile viruses to determine how rapidly these diseases are spreading. Volunteers receive the benefit of knowing that they are disease free.
• AIDs testing to monitor the spread of disease.
• DNA testing to ascertain your identity. Human tissue has a unique footprint and can be used to validate identity.