Spyglass Consulting Group released its most recent healthcare study entitled “Point of Care Communications for Nursing 2014.” The report shows 51% of hospitals interviewed are evaluating enterprise-class nursing smartphone solutions to support collaborative team-based care over the next 12 to 18 months. These solution will allow hospitals to address current and future application requirements that are tightly integrated with the hospital’s PBX, clinical information, systems, biomedical devices, and nurse call system.

“Despite advancements in mobile devices and unified communications, hospital IT has underinvested in technologies and processes to support nurses at point of care,” said Gregg Malkary, Managing Director of Spyglass Consulting Group. “Nearly 42 percent of hospitals interviewed are still reliant on pagers, noisy overhead paging systems and landline phones for communications and care coordination.”

Passage of the Affordable Care Act is forcing hospital IT departments to evaluate and deploy innovative mobile technologies and unified communications solutions to support collaborative team-based care to help enhance communications, streamline clinician productivity, improve care quality, and increase clinician satisfaction.