Walk the TED Talk

In 2010 I was sent a link to a TED talk where the speaker held up an iPhone and said “this device is going to change the future of healthcare”.  I was involved in a project where we were building the electronic medical record for a major health system, digitizing the patient charts and going paperless.  I was excited to see this video because I could see how mobility could benefit the workflows and it all made so much sense.  I was a believer, but I was new enough to healthcare to not understand that sometime things happen that don’t make sense.  Our health system had given most the caregivers iPhones and I could see us building apps that be used with our new EMR.  It was very exciting during a time where IT shops did development and created products.  Then in 2012 our new CIO was standing on a stage in the auditorium and, in TED talk fashion, she said she was going harvest those devices and save the health system millions of dollars.  It was deflating to see that a health system that was progressive and innovative enough to build their own EMR could not figure out mobility.

By 2015 there was some expansion of the dedicated devices and there were a few shared devices, but they were all in single app mode and locked down.  A lot of the HIS systems had apps, but the impression was that iPhones are expensive phones and everyone doesn’t need a phone.  The idea that the devices are mobile computers, that only have a phone as an optional feature, was not breaking through. It took a while, but eventually there were more shared devices that were out of single app mode and the Mobile Device Management systems were getting better and better.  WIFI was improving and some of the resistance to mobile was starting to erode. 

Mobile First

At Navv, we were creating our first release of the app that eventually become NavvTrack and we were getting ready to deploy it.  We were going to deploy a large fleet of shared devices to patient transporters and housekeepers and these workflows had never had any technology like this before.  Our product could not be successful unless there was a healthy fleet of phones and we could prove that the benefits of the devices put weighed the pitfalls.  This was an inner-city hospital with all of the challenges you get with a busy hospital in a large building in a big city. 

There were many questions like, what if the phones get lost?  What if someone changes the settings? How do you keep the devices charged?  Because the product can locate the phones you can find the device as long as the device is charged so you only have a window of time where you can actively track the device.  Also, the settings on the device need to be set in a certain configuration so that the device can send its location. That means that the health, configuration and location are all tied together when managing the fleet.  Fortunately, we recognized this and features were created that would monitor those devices so that the health and configurations could be managed by the departments that were using workflow.  This Fleet Management module was the key moving on to mobile workflows and we were excited to see it working well.  Then came the next challenge. 

Share and Share Alike

Some of the more progressive health systems have large fleets of iOS devices like iPhones and iPads that are being used for mobile workflows and other use cases.  Those fleets are not immune to the pitfalls that we found and we were being asked by IT if we could provide fleet management to those devices.  The mobility team explained the complexity of managing thousands of small devices that are moving around a large building with no way to keep track of them.  It turns out those are the same challenges the departments who are using the devices face.  We asked IT, “what if you could give the departments the ability to do some of the management that you face and they keep track of the devices instead of you”?  The answer was, “that would be great”.  That was the start of NavvTrack Fleet Management as a module of NavvTrack all on its own. 

The Fleet Manager module knows when the device is out of its charging station and tells the user when there are problems with the health or configuration of the device.  If the department wants the identity of the device user a check out feature can be added.  Otherwise, it is simple for the user and simple for the departments.  When a device is reported missing the department manager can put the device in lost mode which will send the location of the device to the mobility team and lock the device so that it can’t pose a security threat.  The Fleet Manager is very flexible so that the location of the device can be given to the department or it can be hidden from the department and on presented only to the IT mobility team.  This addresses any concerns over the tracking of the user.  The health of the device is monitored and the user is alerted when there are issues with the settings or the battery. 

Mobile for All

Now with the departments enabled to keep track of the devices and interact with the MDM the IT Mobility team can focus on making the overall mobile user experience better for everyone.  The biggest complaint users have about mobile is logging in.  When we log into a desktop most of our apps are tied to active directory and single signon works well. Not so much with mobile.  Apple came out with SSO extensions in 2019 but developers needed to add them to their apps for them to participate in single signon.  Navv is participating in single signon and others are starting to follow.  IT manages identity and authentication and they can ensure that access to those systems is available for the app ecosystem for a healthcare enterprise.

Why is all this so important to the digital journey for the healthcare enterprise?  In the big picture, mobile workers will finally have access to mobile devices that have capabilities like indoor GPS and context aware applications that know where they are and what they need to do their jobs with as little friction as possible.  NavvTrack Fleet Management is the first application to bring that location aware technology to the health system but once it is in place, it is available to all mobile devices and apps that are on those mobile devices.  Mobile workflows are a source of delay and huge opportunity for improvers and with tools like NavvTrack maybe that device that was shown in the Ted talk really will change the future of healthcare.

Care Traffic Roadmap

• If you have done your maps and IPS, bravo!!
• Get a fleet management process in place for your existing mobile devices
• Itemize the workflows that can benefit from mobility the most
• Ensure you evaluate and use the apps for the systems you already have
• Let your vendors know your buildings are location aware and find out where automation fits into their mobility strategy
• Understand where automation would help the most for the workflows that are the most important
• Look for new solutions based on the requirements you found in Care Traffic Control!