A recent report from the The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and commissioned by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) found that only 6.3 percent of the hardware used in the field today are handheld devices like smartphones. The report follows an announcement from Verizon Wireless earlier this month that it now offering an application for home health care workers called OnCare, that was developed by Xora.

The new report, called: The BlackBerry Report: The National State of the Home Care Industry Study also included the metrics below:

More than 65 percent of home health care agencies now have electronic medical records (EMRs)
Some 83 percent said that these EMRs have improved the quality of their care coordination
Almost 40 percent of home health agencies use some form of POS system in the field
Handheld devices account for 6.3 percent of hardware used in the field currently
Some 36.8 percent of agencies planning to purchase new hardware are interested in handhelds
About 23 percent of agencies report using telehealth systems
About 21.9 percent of home health agencies give more than 5 percent of revenue for free care

“The study was intended to identify best practices in home care to allow all home health care providers to realize efficiencies and quality of care to the nation’s most vulnerable seniors,” Marcia Reissig, chairperson of study cosponsor Hospital Home Care Association of America (HHCAA), stated in a press release.

The study was also conducted with the help of Fazzi Associates, a home care consulting, benchmarking, training and research firms.

For more, read the full press release here.