Summary:
With targets set by the Department of Health to introduce £22bn efficiency savings by 2020 and go paperless by 2018, the NHS has been increasingly challenged to do more with less. The introduction of agile working practices for community care staff by adopting new wireless and mobile technology is an obvious way to improve efficiency but can also introduce new challenges.
The National Mobile Health Worker Project - Final Report published by the Department of Health in 2013 concluded that the introduction of mobile technology significantly increased productivity, allowed more time to be spent with patients and reduced referrals and hospital admissions. However, the report also highlighted technical concerns relating to session persis¬tence and login/user experience as well as connectivity. If fact, the most commonly recorded complaint was related to poor network coverage and reliability, with a recommendation that Trusts analyse the performance of their network providers and consider using more than one.
This whitepaper examines some key technical aspects that are crucial to the success of mobile working projects. The ob¬servations made are based on experience serving as wireless network specialists and connectivity software provider for NHS organisations, in particular the successful implementation of mobile technology for Community Care workers within the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Partnership NHS Trust and the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust.
Overview:
The following observations and advice has been facilitated by this white paper to generally apply to all mobility projects, and to be essential to their success:
Ease of Use
A healthcare worker’s job is to provide care, not to configure wireless net¬works, troubleshoot connectivity prob¬lems, reauthenticate VPNs and restart applications. Difficult to use systems lead to less time with the patient and any anticipated efficiency gains are quickly lost. Poor user experience leads to workers reverting to pen and paper and causes whole mobility projects to fail.
We need to deliver technology that automates the experience where pos¬sible, is delightful to use, and have technology serve the user and not the other way around. Mobile computing equipment and software applications must be seen as tools for health care workers to perform their primary tasks with less effort and more efficiency, and not as a burden by adding new tasks and obligations.
Connectivity
Improving network connectivity is the single technical measure with the greatest positive effect on performance, efficiency and user experience for mobile health care workers. Connectivity issues such as interrupted sessions, slow speeds and changing network conditions cause application errors that result in lost work and user frustration. Automatic configura¬tion and management of network parameters and interfaces is a must.
Mobile VPN and connection management software can help to automatically connect, and keep the device con-nected to the best available network. They can also offer ses¬sion persistence, and seamlessly switch between networks without user intervention when they become available further improving the user experience.
Network Coverage
Closely related to connectivity, actual network coverage has a major impact on mobile working performance and the ultimate success of a mo¬bility project. Cellular LTE coverage is already ad¬equate in densely populated areas and continues to improve. This is an enabling factor, but will not be enough on its own to provide sufficient coverage for all health care applications which are typically needed in less populated urban or rural settings.
Choose the right cellular technology and the operator with the best coverage for your users specifically. Complement cellular coverage with public and private Wi-Fi. Security risks associated with the use of public Wi-Fi services can be over¬come by using appropriate VPN and firewall technology with built-in hotspot landing page or WISPr access capability. Major public Wi-Fi networks available in the UK are provided by Sky (The Cloud), O2 and BT (BTWiFi). BT also allow subscriber ac¬cess to millions of residential home hubs through the BTWiFi-with-FON service.
Complementing cellular data with such a Wi-Fi service can significantly improve coverage and network speeds especially in rural environments. Software to allow seamless transition between cellular and Wi-Fi networks is recommended for the best user experience. The use of home broadband and also Smartphone tethering can also be used to boost coverage.
Application Behaviour
How do your applications behave in different network conditions? Some applications sup¬port an offline mode, others require a constant connection to operate. Many legacy applica¬tions that were not written with mobile use in mind, may fail or require restarting when network disconnects occur. All applications however benefit from improved connectivity and coverage. Know and test your applications and build a platform that provides sufficient connectivity and seamlessness.
Security
Healthcare applications have clear data secu¬rity requirements. For mobile working, strong network security is a given requirement, but also protection of data stored on the device. Device tracking and remote management are also important. Take care not to sacrifice usability for the sake of security. VPNs not designed for mobile use often perform poorly. Security must be always-on and work with as little user intervention as possible. Stay away from solutions that only protect a single application. Instead use network security that protects all network traffic and use full disk encryption.
