medical tablet PCs Archives

When it comes to healthcare, few conditions need to be addressed with more urgency than wounds and similar injuries. Treating wounds promptly can reduce scarring, lower the risk of infection and speed the healing process. The sooner medical personnel can examine and treat a wound, the better. That often means giving tools to healthcare providers in the field, such as emergency medical technicians and firefighters, as well as wound care specialists and similar staff members at a hospital or care ward. Medical tablets make an excellent means of doing so: utilizing cutting-edge technology to address wound care with the swiftness and efficiency required for a speedy recovery. How? We’ve listed four brief ways below.

Medical Tablets Provide Telehealth Solutions

Telehealth is the means of connecting healthcare providers to their patients through technology, which can include anything from examining patients remotely to consulting experts who might not be on site. This plays an especially large role in wound care, where time is of the essence. The National Institute of Health cites a study on telehealth practices and wound care from CICAT in France, showing that telehealth practices reduced the number of hospitalizations resulting from wound care by 72%, and reduced the number of ambulance transfers by 56%. That translates not only to improved care but a significant reduction in time and resources that can be used to treat other patients.

A medical tablet plays a huge role in that process. With it, EMTs and other personnel can take pictures of the injury en route and forward it electronically to the hospital. That allows them to prepare for the patient’s arrival, as well as providing an early diagnosis to help the EMTs provide more effective immediate care. Even better, physicians at the hospital can provide a diagnosis via the tablet, and determine whether the patient needs to come to the hospital or if treatment can be effectively implemented on site.

The effects can be felt in improved response times and more patients served. For example, a 2017 study cited by the Journal of Emergency Services — involving first-responders in Houston — reported medical technicians returned to work 44 minutes faster than they would have without telehealth options: reducing wasted time without a loss of quality care.

Specialty Access Improves Effectiveness

Wounds often fall under the purveyance of a Wound, Ostomy and Continence (WOC) nurse, specially trained to deal with such injuries. Ameritech estimates that 4% of all hospital cases involve wound treatment of some kind, which means WOC nurse skills are in high demand. But that can stretch WOC nurses’ availability thin – especially when the hospital becomes busy – and with wound care, timely treatment can make a huge difference.

Hospital tablet PCs can help such specialists use their time more effectively. They permit WOC nurses and others to receive images of the injury and other data that they can use to make a swift diagnosis, then pass the needed treatment information back to the point of care without wasting time. Medical tablets can further assist in such efforts by allowing for one-handed operation – giving the attending caregiver a free hand to measure the length of the wound and provide proper scale for the WOC nurse to better make a diagnosis.

Interconnection Makes a Difference

A tablet connected to a larger computer network has access to the data in that network, allowing users to check information that they might not otherwise be able to. This has a bearing on wound care, both in terms of immediate treatment and on more general practices. For example, in Canada, the Toronto Central Community Care Access Centre (TC CCAC) reported significant improvement in wound care through the use of data analytics and application. The software allowed medical tablets to record real-time data, then track the length and rate of the healing process. That resulted in a reduction in patient readmission for wound care — down from 31% to a mere 7% –as well as a significant improvement in the length of healing.

The best medical tablet PCs allow swift and easy access to such data directly at the point of care, whether it be in a hospital setting or in the field. That, in turn, allows medical personnel to apply the data to their particular patient, ensuring more effective treatment faster.

Tablets with Antimicrobial Components Provide Safeguards

Sterility and hygiene are serious concerns for any kind of medical treatment, but they particularly important when it comes to wounds. Open wounds are exceedingly vulnerable to infection (which can come from almost anywhere), and even wounds from sterilized environments such as surgery incisions develop infections some 1-to-3 percent of the time, according to studies from Johns Hopkins.

That makes sterility very important for any devices operating in close proximity to any wound. Tablets are of especial concern since they are often passed from technician to technician, and used to treat numerous patients for a wide variety of issues. That, in turn, can increase the threat of germs and infection when treating any kind of wound.

That’s part of why medical-grade tablets are preferable to commercial-grade tablets when it comes to point-of-care for wounds. More specifically, tablets with an antimicrobial surface will keep germs from being transmitted from one patient to another, reducing the risk when used to treat an open or infected wound. In addition, tablets protected from liquid ingress, such as those with an IP65 rating, can be safely cleaned with liquid disinfectant and kept hygienic much more easily.

Cybernet Manufacturing offers a series of medical tablet PCs for a variety of uses, including point-of-care and EMT services. Contact us today to discuss your options!

BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device, a policy adopted by many businesses allowing for employees to use laptops, cell phones and other personal devices for business use. For organizations without security concerns, it makes an attractive and easy way to get around existing hardware issues. BYODs can save money without reducing efficiency, while giving employees the ability to work remotely in many cases.

Those are powerful incentives. According to a recent article at HealthIT Plus, 71 percent of clinicians report at least some BYOD use at their facilities… sometimes despite policies forbidding them. Such use can come about as a simple matter of necessity, such as a doctor using her cell phone to access hospital records while filling out paperwork at home. Other times, BYOD use arises as part of a coordinated policy on behalf of the hospital, hoping for the same benefits that other businesses enjoy.

But BYOD policies run into serious issues when meeting the demands of a medical facility, and if administrators aren’t careful, it could end up creating more problems than it solves.

For organizations looking to remove BYODs from the equation, and thus solve the issues they can present, the right hardware is a must. Certified medical tablet PCs can often fulfill the same needs as BYOD devices, allowing administrative staff to cut a very thorny Gordian knot cleanly and effectively.

What kind of needs do medical tablets fulfill, and who do they solve the problems created by BYOD? Here’s a short list of some specifics.

Security Can Be Better Maintained with Tablets

Security is a significant concern with medical devices. A patient’s health records can be worth a great deal of money on the black market, even more so than credit card numbers in many cases. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, such data breaches have cost the healthcare industry over $6 billion per year. Obviously, proper security is vital to maintain electronic medical records (EMR) and other data. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) establishes rigorous standards for privacy and security, with heavy fines levied against those who can’t meet those conditions.

For example, the FDA estimates that half of the 3.4 billion mobile phone users in the world have downloaded at least one medical-based application. For medical personnel, that percentage is likely much higher. Medical organizations can ensure that such devices are HIPAA compliant and operating safely by implementing firewalls and unified threat management software to protect the network in the event of trouble. But BYODs rarely begin their service with such levels of protection, which means they need to be added before they can be considered safe. And when you multiply that potential across an entire organization – every cell phone used by every employee – the prospects for a major security headache multiply along with it.

Medical grade tablets owned and controlled by the organization, on the other hand, can use a single security system, as well as include integrated measures like RFID scanners and biometric readers which most BYODs lack. That not only permits the kind of security protections necessary to remain HIPAA complaint, but it allows staff to access them quickly and easily. And because the devices are dedicated solely to medical work, there’s no concern about overlap from a BYOD’s personal files. It provides better security in the event they are lost or stolen, since it can be much harder to access the data.

Medical Tablets Are Better Protected Against Germs and Illnesses

Illnesses are a constant concern in hospitals and medical facilities, and without proper care being taken, nosocomial infections (infections originating in the hospital and being passed through it) and similar threats can arise very quickly. Mobile devices can easily carry germs and viruses, since medical staff handle them regularly and even carry them from patient to patient. It’s a serious problem. According to the CDC, approximately 1.7 million patients are afflicted with hospital acquired illnesses (HAI) in the U.S. every year, and of those, approximately 99,000 are fatal.

BYOD devices are particularly vulnerable to this. Since they’re intended for consumer use, they lack antimicrobial protection. They usually can’t be disinfected either, since applying liquid to them can cause them to short out and become useless. And if they are used outside the medical facility, there’s no telling what kinds of illnesses can come piggy-backing in when a well-meaning staff member brings it to work.

Medical-grade tablets provide more formal protection against germs and illnesses. Antimicrobial properties baked into their housing helps them repel biological contaminants. In addition, tablets that are IP65 certified can be disinfected with liquid cleansers without running a risk of damage to the tablet itself, which further prevents the spread of illness in a hospital setting.

IT Headaches Go Up with BYOD

Cellphones, personal tablets and consumer PCs at home can come from almost anywhere and entail dozens of different models and systems. That can be a serious handful for your IT department, which needs to keep the devices in your organization maintained and operating. Even something as comparatively mundane as an iPhone update can wreak havoc in a medical environment with BYODs. That, in turn, can waste huge amounts of time and resources as the IT staff struggles to keep numerous different devices updated and coordinated.

Dedicated medical tablet PCs and similar portable devices simplify that issue considerably. An “in-house” system eliminates the morass of hardware and software in favor of a single model and OS. When problems arise, they can be dealt with swiftly. If updates are needed, they can be implemented across the entire network without having to make adjustments. That allows your IT personnel to do their jobs more effectively, and allows them to focus on other pressing issues instead of constantly trying to integrate a new phone or updated OS from a BYOD.

Cybernet Manufacturing offers an array of medically certified tablets and computers for use in a hospital setting. If you’re looking for a solution to the BYOD dilemma, contact us today.

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The Benefit of Medical Tablets to Wound Care