Healthcare

Healthcare
Healthcare centers, such as hospitals and doctor’s offices, must maintain accurate records to
ensure effective patient care. A simple mistake can cost someone’s life. As a result, doctors and
nurses must carefully record test results, physical data, pharmaceutical orders, and surgical
procedures. This paperwork often overwhelms healthcare staff, taking 50%–70% of their time.
Doctors and nurses are also extremely mobile, going from room to room caring for patients.
The use of electronic patient records, with the capability to input, view, and update patient data
from anywhere in the hospital, increases the accuracy and speed of healthcare. This improvement
is made possible by providing each nurse and doctor with a wireless pen–based computer,
coupled with a wireless network to databases that store critical medical information
about the patients.
A doctor caring for someone in the hospital, for example, can place an order for a blood test
by keying the request into a handheld computer. The laboratory will receive the order electronically
and dispatch a lab technician to draw blood from the patient. The laboratory will run the
tests requested by the doctor and enter the results into the patient’s electronic medical record.
The doctor can then check the results via the handheld appliance from anywhere in the hospital.
Another application for wireless networks in hospitals is the tracking of pharmaceuticals. The
use of mobile handheld bar code printing and scanning devices dramatically increases the efficiency
and accuracy of all drug transactions, such as receiving, picking, dispensing, inventory
taking, and tracking drug expiration dates. Most importantly, though, it ensures that hospital
staff are able to administer the right drug to the right person at the right time. This would not
be possible without the use of wireless networks to support a centralized database and mobile
data collection devices.