Earlier this year the Department of Health published a report on the National Mobile Health Worker Project, which demonstrated that healthcare professionals can utilise technology and information to transform their services and care that they provide to patients. The report found that by using mobile technology, healthcare professionals had access to the up-to-date information they needed to be able to efficiently and effectively deliver care, update patient data, plan treatment and monitor outcomes.
Another finding of this report was that clinicians were able to spend more time with patients, resulting in them having greater confidence and clinicians feeling that they had been able to carry out their job effectively.
Now the results of a new survey of CCGs show that 94.1% of respondents acknowledge that mobile technology is a critical success factor to better health and social care integration. However, the top issue preventing its introduction was stated to be ‘lack of understanding/knowledge about its benefits and speed to implement’.
Colin Reid, CEO of TotalMobile, an organisation that provides mobile technologies to healthcare and local government, who carried out the survey comments: “If the benefits [of mobile technology] are not perceived to be significant or fully understood and implementation perceived as long, then naturally its place on the priority list will remain low. This needs to be addressed in order to change the perception of mobile health from a “nice to have” to a “must have”. Greater clarity is required to evidence the benefits and the simplicity of implementing mobile technology.”
Understanding how the latest technologies, such as the new integrated digital referral system for GPs, www.gprefer.co.uk, can be used to improve services and enhance patient care will be fundamental to meeting the increasing demands being placed on healthcare delivery services.