Clinician Collaboration and Communications: IBM provides wireless technologies and tools that can dramatically improve clinician productivity, data accuracy, patient response times, and quality of care.

1. Wireless innovations to improve your healthcare operations and patient satisfaction
Healthcare mobility and wireless
solutions from IBM
In the demanding healthcare
environment—where communication
is critical—organizations are striving to
find the most effective ways to put clini-
cians and staff in touch with the
resources, assets and information they
need to reduce costs, and improve
patient safety and quality of care.
Healthcare provider solutions from
IBM provide new technologies and
solutions that can dramatically improve
clinician productivity, data accuracy,
patient response times, and quality of
care. IBM offers a wide range of mobil-
ity and wireless solutions designed
Highlights specifically for the healthcare industry,
giving your staff members the tools and
■ Improve staff productivity, ■ Integrate multiple communication
information they need to stay in touch
patient response times, asset systems and networks, to simplify
and informed.
management and tracking, and your infrastructure and reduce
quality of care through enhanced costs
Mobility and wireless solutions can help
communication
healthcare organizations:
■ Establish a secure and robust
● Reduce medical errors and risk.
wireless infrastructure to support
● Improve responsiveness and consis-
your healthcare mobility and real-
tency of patient care.
time tracking solutions
● Enable more effective care to an ever-
increasing number of patients.

2. ● Provide higher visibility and accounta-
bility for equipment and patients in
real time.
● Ensure high-speed access to critical
information across the clinical
ecosystem.
● Reduce the cost and complexity of
multiple communication systems,
including Wi-Fi, cellular, paging, nurse
call and telephony.
Healthcare provider organizations can
IBM offers a wide range of mobility and wireless solutions and services for healthcare providers, addressing
benefit from the implementation of your unique requirements with a comprehensive, vendor-neutral approach.
robust, proven mobility and wireless
solutions in numerous ways. They can industry-leading mobility and wireless IBM also offers a full project lifecycle of
uncover significant cost savings to opti- solutions to meet your unique needs. technical services for mobility and wire-
mize scarce clinical resources and IBM healthcare solutions include wire- less solutions, including strategy,
reduce medical asset loss. They can less infrastructure, wireless voice com- assessment, design, integration,
offer improved quality of care and gain munication, real-time location services, deployment and ongoing maintenance.
a higher rate of patient satisfaction. event-driven notification services, enter- For example, to help ensure successful
Finally, they can enable more efficient prise asset management, and patient implementation of your wireless voice
processes and workflows, which can workflow and data analysis. communication, event-driven notifica-
facilitate compliance with regulations tion and real-time tracking solutions,
such as the Healthcare Insurance IBM’s healthcare workflow consulting IBM can assess your existing wireless
Portability and Accountability Act, The practices can help address critical network to determine whether it pro-
Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) hospital initiatives to improve patient vides a secure, robust infrastructure
regulations, and Sarbanes-Oxley. care, patient safety, asset optimization, capable of supporting your healthcare
and supply chain efficiencies. mobility initiatives. If the necessary
IBM as your trusted partner for IBM’s methodology and extensive foundation is not in place, IBM can
implementing healthcare system knowledge of best practices in health- provide a vendor-neutral approach to
solutions care can be leveraged to meet hospital selecting a wireless infrastructure tai-
For healthcare organizations looking to quality, safety and financial goals. lored for your environment’s business
leverage and integrate their communi- and technical requirements.
cations, operations, and information
flow, IBM can provide a wide range of
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3. Because IBM has extensive expertise facilitate decision making, and improve Real-time location services for
providing wireless solution design serv- patient satisfaction. Polycom enhanced resource utilization
ices for clients and environments world- SpectraLink Wireless Telephone, for IBM can provide visibility into the condi-
wide, they can offer your organization example, can provide instant wireless tion of medical assets, equipment,
specific recommendations and design voice communication, which users con- patients, clinicians and staff members
plans, taking into consideration busi- trol with spoken commands. Mobile using real-time location services (RTLS),
ness goals and applications, perform- staff members can be immediately con- helping your teams respond and admin-
ance, availability, security and ongoing nected to the people and resources ister care more quickly and safely where
management. Once the design has they need. This solution reduces phone and when care is needed. RTLS can
been created, IBM will take preparatory tag, overhead paging and the need to offer healthcare providers dramatic ben-
steps to help ensure a successful physically search for a person—giving efits, help minimize theft and loss,
implementation. These steps can healthcare providers more time for improve asset utilization, reduce capital
include procuring equipment, develop- patients. expenditures, and improve overall
ing detailed configurations, and testing patient safety and quality of care.
configurations in a lab environment. Polycom SpectraLink Wireless
Finally, IBM can deploy the solution as Telephone handsets can be registered Real-time tracking solutions collect
an initial pilot before fully implementing in up to 10 systems, including nurse information that enables hospitals to
it in the production environment, and call systems, patient monitoring, real- improve workflow processes by pin-
can provide your staff with training and time location services, and speech pointing bottlenecks. Understanding
support. recognition, enabling healthcare the location, time and condition of
providers who travel between locations resources can help improve patient
These world-class services reflect to bring along their handsets. Using care by enabling quick identification of
industry best practices, unmatched Polycom SpectraLink Wireless the nearest available equipment
technology and solution expertise from Telephone, you can send and receive required for care. RTLS can also facili-
IBM, and the depth and breadth of text messages, get help from specified tate the monitoring of safety processes
experience IBM has gained in the departments, or communicate with co- such as hand washing and improve
healthcare industry. workers or outside resources instantly. hospital financials by enabling auto-
IBM can help you develop a design and matic billing of specialty equipment to
Wireless voice communication deployment strategy through a require- specific patients.
systems for timely decision making ments gathering workshop, develop
IBM can help your organization set up system design, procure and configure IBM has a thorough understanding
mobile voice communication between handsets, conduct system installation, of the diverse real-time tracking and
healthcare professionals at the point and test and provide end-user training. sensor-based options such as RFID
of care in order to increase employee used in healthcare environments and
productivity, streamline operations,
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4. can help you select the right technology nurse call systems can be transmitted Enterprise asset management for easy
and solution to fit your needs. For to mobile devices via the hospital sys- access to information and resources
clients who require active Wi-Fi real- tem’s I/O gateway in the form of alerts, IBM has the solution expertise to facili-
time location technology leveraging an and appropriate action can be taken by tate critical medical equipment man-
existing network, IBM partners with recipients based on the nature and agement, supply chain management,
market leaders such as Aeroscout and severity of the alerts. contact management and service level
Ekahau. IBM also supports other real- agreement tracking. With a robust,
time tracking technologies, working The use of these systems can translate scalable system such as IBM Maximo®
with partners like Sonitor, which pro- to more accurate and timely medication Asset Management in place, your
vides an ultrasound system that is administration, effective remote patient organization can better monitor and
immune to electromagnetic interference monitoring, higher patient security, manage assets, including compliance
and provides sub-room level location instant and accurate medical record with governmental and industry regula-
accuracy. Once the technology and entry, and more effective patient bed tions, reporting requirements, and opti-
provider are identified, IBM can help management, resulting in improved mization of inventory and capital.
you develop system design and imple- quality of care. You can also enable
ment a robust and scalable solution. enhanced patient location tracking for Asset management systems offer
patients who might wander, as well as instrument calibration, support for elec-
Event-driven notification services to for visitor, patient, clinician and staff tronic signatures, and support for cor-
help you address critical issues safety to sound alerts if they enter a rective and preventive action. They can
quickly secured area. Replay features can help help your organization use assets more
IBM can help your organization identify who has come into contact with effectively. In addition to improving the
implement event-driven, real-time contagiously infected patients, staff or timeliness and accuracy of information,
notification services. Systems such as equipment and help quickly quarantine such systems can help ensure proper
IBM WebSphere® Premises Server and outbreaks. maintenance, improving the reliability of
Globestar’s ConnexALL can integrate assets and resulting in a higher return
communication resources that enable Event-driven, real-time notification sys- on investment. IBM can help you
intelligent, real-time notification to tems can also help with building man- develop a deployment strategy through
healthcare providers and other parties agement, resulting in enhanced patient a requirements gathering workshop,
wherever they are. Important data gen- and clinical experiences. For instance, develop system design, conduct sys-
erated by hospital back-end systems staff members can receive information tem installation, and test and provide
and communication systems such as regarding HVAC, building security sys- end-user training.
tems and fire alarms so that these
issues can be addressed before they
cause harm or discomfort.
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5. Workflow and data analysis for IBM Prolink methodology. This process approach and proven solution.
intelligent business decision making consulting tool for operations and strat- IBM offers a comprehensive portfolio of
IBM enables an information-based egy can help your organization map technologies, software and services,
approach to healthcare delivery current processes and compare them from simple initial assessments and
through patient workflow management to industry best practices. It can help pilots to full-enterprise deployments, to
and data analysis using systems such you improve both business and clinical help deliver robust and flexible solutions
as IBM Cognos® business intelligence processes, and enable you to imple- that best fit your environment and busi-
software. These systems collect critical ment a business-centric IT foundation ness needs.
business data across the enterprise and to support your mobility and wireless
enable you to view information in a way systems. IBM has a team of highly skilled serv-
that makes sense for your environment. ices practitioners and a broad ecosys-
Prolink enables healthcare providers to tem of IBM Business Partners to help
Information can be viewed through understand the changes to their busi- deliver innovative solutions that can be
dashboards, scorecards, analysis nesses before implementing new tech- integrated with your existing healthcare
reports, queries and alerts. Business nologies. In this way, you can prepare systems. The capabilities IBM can pro-
intelligence can help you to understand your staff for the ways in which new vide include strategic planning, assess-
what is happening in your healthcare technologies such as mobility and wire- ment and implementation of mobility
organization, identify factors that under- less solutions will affect everyday job and wireless infrastructures and con-
lie those events, and provide you with duties. The stages in a Prolink imple- verged communications systems, net-
opportunities to take action on critical mentation include defining expected working architecture optimization,
issues before they impact business, outcomes from operational changes, end-user support, device management,
and more importantly, patient safety introducing metrics to guide workflow telecom expense management,
and satisfaction. Business intelligence and system functionality, refining work and security and privacy systems
systems can target specific areas of the processes, and evaluating results implementation.
hospital including people, assets and against measurable objectives defined
tools. Access to information presented at the inception of the project. Experienced IBM consultants can iden-
in this way gives you real-time visibility tify the right technologies and software,
into performance. The IBM difference design the most appropriate solutions,
IBM has successfully worked with and implement them using industry
IBM Prolink project management healthcare providers worldwide to best practices. They can help health-
methodology for business process implement cost-effective, security-rich care organizations avoid common tech-
mobility and wireless solutions, offering nology pitfalls and enable them to focus
improvement
each organization a customized on their core competencies—delivering
IBM can also provide project manage-
high quality patient care cost effectively.
ment services including process
re-engineering and optimization using
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6. For more information © Copyright IBM Corporation 2009
IBM Corporation
To learn more about healthcare mobility
New Orchard Road
and wireless solutions from IBM, please Armonk, NY 10504
U.S.A.
contact your IBM representative, or visit
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ibm.com/healthcare. February 2009
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