The results of a recent survey conducted by HIMSS Analytics and sponsored by NetMotion Wireless identified five challenges for wireless healthcare: physical connectivity issues, technology connectivity issues, extensive user demand, security, and network management. The survey also resulted in a number of interesting and telling quotes and testimonials about both the promise and frustration that early wireless health endeavors bring to these medical centers.

Do any of these ring true?

"Doctors go out and buy phones. They expect everything to run through the phone and they want to get the information they need when they need it." - Jim Hauenstein, Enloe Medical Center

"We have noticed a significant improvement in patient care due to the fact that physicians do have immediate access to the results where they've been able to change their medications or order additional tests. Having the ability to order instantly wherever they are, and to see those results is very important for patient care." - Phyllis Paris, Hannibal Regional Healthcare System

"In total, we're about 600 wireless phones, tags, carts, laptops, PDAs, whatever you want to call them running on our wireless network." - Mike Mistretta, MedCentral Health System

"The basement and the first floor, about half of those two floors have no coverage at all. We call it the cone of silence. We're currently working through that problem." - Chris Ossenbeck, McAlester Regional Health Center

"We also had the end user issue where everybody wants their own phone. And we just had to come to an agreement. We created a policy and everybody just had to adhere to that. We only support one brand, one model, from one vendor of phones." - Mike Nichols, Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation

"One of the biggest things is that the clinicians don't understand that we still have to comply with HIPAA and we have to protect the data. They just want to be able to walk up to a device and somehow through osmosis it knows who they are, it knows what they want, and they just want it to do that, so they don't have to log in. And what they want is unrealistic." - Chris Ossenbeck, McAlester Regional Health Center

"We know that we have a growing patient base and we have a reducing care provider base. ... We have about a shortfall of a million nurses nationwide and doctors are becoming more and more scarce and so we have to be able to provide tools to ... allow them to go and touch their patients in a much faster and more mobile area. We also have to make sure that the applications that they're logging information are time sensitive to what they're trying to get done." - Bruce Whyte, UMass Memorial Health Care

"Wireless is here to stay. It's going to grow in its need and usefulness in our institutions. In order to give users the experience they get with their smart phones and other devices they use at home, we've got to be there. We've got to secure it. We've got to figure out the problem." - Greg Veltri, Denver Health

For more from the white paper, download it from NetMotion (.pdf).