White Paper
The
Mobile Health Platform
Revolution Is Happening Now
The Mobile Health Platform The Mobile Health Platform Revolution is
Happening Now
As physicians embrace using their smartphones and mobile applications for professional work, healthcare technology companies have a responsibility to consolidate functionality and create products that streamline workflow for the busy and overloaded healthcare professional. Physicians deserve technology developed by physicians who know what they need and are focused on making products that make their work efficient. Electronic Health Records provide important services for healthcare but it is still unclear what the long-‐term impact is on patient care and physician quality of life. Some experts feel it is even too early to tell if EHR’s will improve healthcare in a meaningful way or help physicians become more efficient. Many physicians believe the reason for the unclear EHR advantage is the lack of working physician involvement in the EHR development process and a fundamental misunderstanding of the practicing physician’s needs. Thankfully, mobile healthcare development is evolving in a different way than EHR did and is using more advanced technology with greater direct physician influence. The Revolution Has Begun The healthcare mobile revolution is now finally underway and it is changing the face of healthcare technology—and it started with enterprise level secure texting mobile apps. These mobile apps have gained in popularity and are being adopted in health systems at a rapid pace. It is understandable that EHR companies have not lead the mHealth charge as their expertise is in documentation resulting in analytics and not in understanding the real time communication and mobile workflow needs of healthcare workers. Also, for the most part, EHR companies are not fast moving innovative companies capable of the rapid change that mobile technology demands with constantly evolving operating systems, new programming languages and frequently required upgrades and releases. Secure texting mobile apps are important but now this space is also changing rapidly. The enterprise level mobile app is starting to take shape with more functionality and what has emerged is the integrated mobile health platform: a robust, fully functional mobile application that is a central hub where physicians and nurses can access all of the necessary information needed to care for their patients using the latest in mobile technology. Smartphone operating systems like Apple and Android are giving more control to mobile engineers, resulting in the development of smart mobile applications. These applications are highly secure while connecting to many different systems. They can communicate and organize information between different hospital software systems from different vendors and from most legacy technology. th
Copyright 2014 © Doc Halo | 403 Vine Street, 4 Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45202 | 855-DOC-HALO | [email protected] | DocHalo.com
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The Mobile Health Platform The definition of a mobile health platform is a hub that receives information from all corners of a hospital system and organizes it in one place for the mobile end user to view. Whether it’s securely texting with a physician, nurse or patient, receiving a laboratory result or exchanging patient information, the platform is at the center of it all. Another important benefit of the mobile health platform is scalability and flexibility. It is a daunting task for hospital CIOs and their teams to stay up-‐to-‐date on and deploy every emerging mobile technology that could impact patient care, but with a mobile health platform, they don’t have to. Implementing a mobile health platform gives the CIO the ability to integrate a new technology when they are ready. The platform is an existing mobile endpoint to receive information from an operator console, a pager, a medical device, active directory, EHR, a call scheduling system, or other technology. th
Copyright 2014 © Doc Halo | 403 Vine Street, 4 Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45202 | 855-DOC-HALO | [email protected] | DocHalo.com
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The Mobile Health Platform The 3 Pillars of the Mobile Health Platform A mobile health platform is built on three pillars. The first pillar is enhanced secure texting and other real-‐time communication features that make it easy for providers and nurses to communicate and improve efficiency. 1. Secure Communication Primarily secure texting with many advanced features that improve a healthcare professional’s workflow. Examples of specialized features include auto-‐forwarding, customized repeat alerts, message recall, escalation, media capabilities, message life control and urgent message capability to name a few. Additional communication features are added continuously. The second pillar is systems integration, providing seamless integration into existing healthcare software programs. 2. Systems Integration This means that the platform is flexible, has open API’s, can support all paging protocols, and can integrate with other messaging software like operator consuls and call center software. It supports HL7 interfaces for EHR, medical device and alarm integration. Additionally it must also be able to support provisioning by Active Directory, custom programs, LDAP and remote authentication. The third pillar is clinical innovation resulting in the delivery of mobile products and features within the platform that improve physician workflow and ultimately patient care. 3. Clinical Innovation If a mobile health platform is not continually evolving and adding innovative features for physicians then it will be outdated before it is deployed within a healthcare system. Features like supporting call scheduling, patient lists, and features that help physicians improve patient care are very important to the evolution of the platform. Another important innovative function that a platform must have is the ability to strategically align physicians on a customizable organization portal. A place where physicians can be grouped by specialty or department. They can be assigned special priorities and special interests: an area within the application where they can be easily identified by physicians who want to refer patients to them. With health systems growing larger by the day and integrating different physician practices this is a critical function to bring an organization together. th
Copyright 2014 © Doc Halo | 403 Vine Street, 4 Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45202 | 855-DOC-HALO | [email protected] | DocHalo.com
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The Mobile Health Platform The ideal platform addresses these three pillars and includes built in flexibility so organizations can adopt new technology at their desired pace. It also must have another very important factor built into the delivery and deployment of the mobile system: the prevention of alert fatigue. The mobile platform must be able to control and restrict access to physicians making it a controlled environment where physicians are only contacted by users who have been given access to them for real time clinical communication. Communication through the mobile health platform must be relevant and should not be confused with EHR inboxes or email systems where physicians are inundated by messages from every corner of a health system. These messages are frequently ignored by physicians due to the sheer volume and perceived lack of importance. The mobile health platform has arrived and is changing the way physicians work. Fortunately, it has evolved separately from EHR, call center software, operator consuls and legacy rules engine systems. Companies with real mobile expertise and direct physician input are leading this charge and delivering innovative technology that is long overdue. th
Copyright 2014 © Doc Halo | 403 Vine Street, 4 Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45202 | 855-DOC-HALO | [email protected] | DocHalo.com
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The Mobile Health Platform About Doc Halo
Doc Halo is the leading mobile health platform for healthcare organizations. The Doc Halo mobile app and online system provides a secure texting and HIPAA-‐compliant environment for the transmission of ePHI (electronic personal health information) over an encrypted platform. The innovative physician-‐
driven system combines critical operational information including relevant contact databases, call center messages, scheduling, billing and EMR software for an information-‐rich, easy-‐to-‐use experience. More than 1,300 hospitals and medical facilities trust Doc Halo with their mobile health platform. For more information, please visit www.dochalo.com. More information at http://www.dochalo.com. 855-‐DOC-‐HALO 855-‐362-‐4256 [email protected] th
Copyright 2014 © Doc Halo | 403 Vine Street, 4 Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45202 | 855-DOC-HALO | [email protected] | DocHalo.com
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