subsequent shifts. Some hospitals’ medication administration systems require barcode scanning of the ID wristband issued during registration and the medication label to ensure the correct medication is given to the correct patient. The system alerts the nurse if any scanned information is inconsistent with the prescription, such as incorrect patient, inaccurate medication or dosage, and invalid time for medication delivery. Some form of identification (such as barcoded wristband or RFID tags) that patients wear throughout their hospitals stays and that can be validated by embedded wireless security features is imperative for patient safety, and nurse and hospital liability protection.

 

CONCLUSION

Effectively designed UA initiatives can help allay potentially fatal errors, improve patient safety, and boost overall quality of care. Additionally, UA provides a comprehensive view of the patient’s medical information, which is imperative for caregivers to effectively and efficiently service patients at every point in the care system. Caring for the patient’s data is as important as caring for the patient because poor patient data quality could lead to a fatality.

The U.S. health-care industry has been a laggard when it comes to IS investments. This should change as evidence—sometimes difficult to quantify in dollars but easily identified in care- and work-quality terms— of the return on investments from implementations are publicized. Such evidence includes the 250% error reduction in the drug-ordering process that saved nearly $300,000 from 2002 to 2003 at the completely wireless El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, CA [ 2]. Access to information is vital to the way hospital staffs do business, and it will soon be known that tethered technologies cannot deliver the performance needed to adequately decrease administrative workloads and promote patient safety, especially for extremely mobile work forces.

It is possible that U.S. hospital administrators are comfortable with the performance of tethered systems, in which they have made substantial investments. As the status quo, tethered computing appears to have become a sustaining technology (in that it maintains the rate of historical performance improvements that stakeholders expect [ 1].) Therefore, for many hospital administrators, UA may be viewed as a disruptive technology (requiring process reengineering, technical restructuring, and/or systems integration). This label may not be the most effective way to foster acceptance of UA, particularly in more conservative health-care organizations. As it has been claimed: “Health care may be the most entrenched, change-averse industry in the U.S.” [ 1].

It would be more helpful for hospitals to view these technologies not as disruptive, but as dovetailing, a convergence of the technology characteristics, organizational assets, and task performer’s capabilities that disrupts the old economics of the task without disrupting the task environment or the relationship between patient and nurse [ 8].

Under these circumstances, UA can help reduce documentation errors and preparation time while improving information quality and nurses’ working environments. Hospitals that embrace UA can increase patient safety across a wide range of caregivers, departments, and responsibilities. By collecting and delivering vital information when and where it is needed most—at the point of care—hospitals can spur their transformation into more efficient and effective and safer institutions. ^c

REFERENCES

1. Christensen, C., Bohmer, R., and Kenagy, J. Will disruptive innovations cure health care? Harvard Business Review (OnPoint Collection) 18, 29 (Sept., 2000).

2. Colliver,V. The ‘smart’ hospital of the future. San Francisco Chronicle (Feb. 23, 2004); www.primidi.com/2004/02/24.html#a751.

3. Datamonitor. IT Infrastructure Trends in U.S. Health Care Providers. 2004.

4. Heath, C. and Luff, P. Technology in Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. 2000.

5. Health Care Information Management Systems Society. Analytics: Market Research. The Essentials of the U.S. Hospital IT Market (2007); www.himssanalytics.org/general/essentials.asp.

6. Institute of Medicine. To err is human: Building a safer health system. (2000); www.nap.edu/books/0309068371/html/.

7. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. Health care at the crossroads—strategies for addressing the evolving nursing crisis. (2004); www.jcaho.org/about+us/public+policy+initiatives/health_ care_at_the_crossroads.pdf.

8. Lyytinen, K. and Yoo, Y. Issues and challenges in ubiquitous computing. Commun. ACM 45, 12 (Dec. 2002), 63– 65.

9. Lyytinen, K. and Rose, G. Disruptive nature of information technology innovations: The case of Internet computing in systems development organizations. MIS Quarterly 27, 4 (2003), 557–595.

10. Monegain, B. Report: Health care IT spending to grow to $39.5 billion by 2008. Health Care IT News (Jan. 06, 2006); www.health careit- news.com/story.cms?id=4242.

11. Sorensen, C. and Pica, D. Tales from the police: Mobile technologies and contexts of work. Information and Organization 15, 3 (2005), 125–149.

12. Skov, M. and Hoegh, R. Supporting information access in a hospital ward by a context-aware mobile electronic patient record. Personal & Ubiquitous Computing 10, 4 (2006), 205–214.

 

CHON ABRAHAM ( [e-mail]) is an assistant professor of management information systems in the Mason School of Business at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. RICHARD T. WATSON ( [e-mail]) is the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia in Athens. MARIE-CLAUDE BOUDREAU ( [e-mail]) is an associate professor of management information systems in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia in Athens.