Kyle Toburen, senior engineer of desktop and mobility integration at UCHealth, knew the greatest challenge for deployment would be simplifying the data wiping process enough to get the nurses on board. This process took 75 minutes per tablet, and in a hospital, that time is not available to the already busy nurses who were charged with the task. This could be done using an existing solution for healthcare mobile device management, but then key apps like M圜hart Bedside would have to be manually reloaded. To protect patient privacy and comply with HIPAA laws, the tablets would have to be wiped between patients. They also needed an efficient and secure way to manage the fleet of tablets and load content that would meet federal regulations. The organization had an existing hardware vendor but wanted to move to Android. To deliver this digital experience for patients, UCHealth needed new devices. “We wanted them to be able to interact with the outside world, which can be hard to do when you’re in the hospital,” says Horowitz. So, while most hospitals lock down mobile devices to only run pre-approved healthcare apps, they wanted patients to have more control. The tablets could also address goals of delivering personalized disease management education and boosting patient satisfaction scores by offering entertainment and connectivity. “It allows them to see their care team and interact with their care team in real time, as well as things like order food through the application.” When the Clinical Informatics team presented the idea to other technology leaders at UCHealth, they saw the project as an opportunity to provide patients with more than just EHR access. “With the application, patients can actually see everything from their vital signs in real time to information about their upcoming surgery or MRI,” explains Edward Horowitz, senior multimedia developer of clinical informatics at UCHealth.

But UCHealth wanted to use them to share information with patients, via the M圜hart Bedside app from Epic Systems, a leading electronic health records (EHR) solution. Many hospitals now use mobile devices to access medical records, facilitate staff communication and gather patient information.

These days, they’re often at the forefront of technological innovation as well. Teaching hospitals have always been at the forefront of scientific innovation.

Mobile privacy eraser