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Remember beepers? We had assumed that pager use was all but extinct by now! Apparently that’s not the case, and the cost to keep them operating in hospitals has skyrocketed up into the billions.
According to a story by CNN Money, many of the country’s biggest hospitals still use the 90s device in order to keep up communications between staff members. A new study by technology research firm Ponemon Institute says that healthcare professionals spend an average of 45 minutes a day paging patient information back and forth to each other.
The lost productivity has morphed into an $8 billion annual loss, according to the report. Will this newsflash be enough to get hospitals to wise up to the benefits of smart phones or tablets? It may be a long road ahead due to HIPAA’s restrictions on the electronic transmission of protected health information.
In positive news: Most of the 577 hospital-employed health care providers surveyed for the report said that they want–and expect!–text messaging to replace beepers within the next two years.
Does your hospital still use pagers? What do you think about them? Comment below with your opinions!
Source: CNN Money
