A newly launched mobile platform for physician offices, hospitals, imaging centers and laboratories promises to speed up patient check-in time by 80 percent, reduce accounts receivable time and improve collaboration among providers.

NIIT Healthcare Technologies, the Florida-based healthcare division of Indian IT services company NIIT Technologies, has announced the general availability of a platform for the iPad called MASH – short for manage, analyze, sustain, harness – that ties together back-end health IT systems and delivers information to mobile devices.

According to the company, the MASH platform can support numerous applications for providers and patients alike. Patients can sign in on an iPad upon arrival (or they can pre-register online from home), pay their bills or carry a tablet with them to find their way through the facility with GPS-style, turn-by-turn directions. They also can make new appointments and opt in to receive automated reminders.

As soon as a patient signs in, the system notifies the front desk and any others who need to know the patient has arrived, and provides staff with any updated demographic and insurance information. MASH also supports secure messaging between clinicians and allows for targeted marketing to patients.

A second version, currently under development, will include biometric security features such as fingerprint and palm scanning. NIIT Healthcare Technologies says its programmers are trying to integrate technology that will read DNA from a palm scan for authentication.

"MASH 2 will also offer interactive tools that include a 3-D image of the human body, allowing patients to point to the areas where they are experiencing pain or injuries. This is especially useful for children or non-English speaking adults who will be able to show where they are in pain," the company says in an e-mail.

To date, NIIT has installed MASH at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, Calif. – which the company says has the second-busiest emergency room in the state – and is implementing the technology at CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, N.J.