Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
6.4.4
Introduction of Smartphone to Healthcare
The introduction of information technology to the healthcare field has demonstrated
that such technology can reduce medication errors; however, there is no evidential
support for increased adherence to protocol-based care (Wu et al.
2006
), and many
studies lack a financial analysis of the introduction of mobile terminals in
preventing medical accident; the real cost effectiveness is still unclear. However,
making the shift to smartphones from PDAs or special-purpose barcode readers will
improve the cost-effectiveness aspect.
PHS (Personal Handy-phone System) is very common in Japanese healthcare
settings; the GSM (Global System for Mobile) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple
Access) based cellular phones are not used. The evidence of the influence on
medical equipment of cellular phone's radio waves has been unclear until recently,
so hospital managers have hesitated to introduce GSM or CDMA cellular phones.
The smartphone's capability to connect to multiple channels such as Wi-Fi, 3G and
4G wireless technology is an advantage, but its advantage also may be a weakness
because more channels means it is more open to security risks.
Through the smartphone, enormous amounts of personal information will be
exchanged. We have to develop distributed processing systems that can service the
realtime clinical decision support while providing adequate security (Ministry of
Health Labour and Welfare
2010
). It will be necessary to develop the authentication
system closely with cloud computing technology. There are many issues that
hospital managers should take into consideration before introducing smartphones
into medical institutions.
6.5 Conclusion
Research into ensuring medical safety and analyzing the medical business process
with mobile terminals has been conducted for more than 10 years. The course of this
research has not been smooth, and there are many remaining problems. However, I
expect that the advent of smartphone implementation will provide a break-through
for several reasons: The major problems of BCMA are the low-quality design of
user interface and the performance issue on barcode reading. Smartphone processor
performance is now surpassing former high-end workstations while the more
sophisticated interface and more robust barcode recognition by high-performance
image processing will make BCMA more useful.
Furthermore, a smartphone equipped with NFC (Near Field Communication)
will be expected to integrate barcode and RFID into one item. This capability will
be available in many commercial products so that all healthcare members may
change from PHS to smartphones, and they will be ready to conduct medical
administration authentication no matter what the time or location. In addition,
smartphones support many channels such as Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G wireless
