Non-Profit Uses Wireless PDAs

Valle del Sol is an example of a nonprofit innovating through adaptation, integrating new technology to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery in the community. The largest Hispanic behavioral health and social service agency in Phoenix, Valle del Sol has case managers visit families in their homes, helping them connect with services for substance abuse, family crisis, and other support.

Valle del Sol wanted to find a way to enable staff in the field to quickly, easily, and securely gather and upload data about clients, streamlining the process and reducing the chance of errors.

Today, the solution is literally in hand. Thanks to a grant from AT&T Wireless (now Cingular), Valle del Sol is introducing wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs) to 60 of its case managers, equipped with software that manages all of the forms and data needed by field-based clinicians.
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Automakers try to jump-start e-prescribing

Advocates of electronic prescribing are hoping that the Big Three automakers can do what others have not -- get physicians to put down the prescription pad and adopt electronic prescribing.

On Feb. 9, General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler Corp., along with the United Auto Workers union and two insurers, launched the multimillion-dollar Southeast Michigan e-Prescribing Initiative to help up to 17,000 physicians in Michigan implement such systems in their offices.
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Nurses Neglecting Mobile I.T.

Though mobile technology has accelerated many nursing processes, it also has been the tipping point for nurses who perceive I.T. as increasing their workload, said Ann Farrell, R.N., principal and senior consultant at Farrell Associates, a San Francisco-based consulting firm. Farrell said nurses have been slow to adopt mobile technology because they first want to be shown how it can save them time. Unfortunately, most nursing applications have been designed by engineers, so they don’t support the workflow, ergonomics and usability that most nurses need, she added.
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Birmingham Heartlands RFID-tags patients

Birmingham Heartlands Hospital has become the first NHS (UK National Health Service) hospital to radio-tag patients. The hospital has installed a radio tracking system throughout the hospital and can find and identify patients using standard radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. The idea is to allow clinical team to confirm they have the right patient and are performing the right procedure. The pilot is currently running for patients undergoing ear, nose and throat surgery.
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