10 Technologies Hospital Leaders Should be Watching

The ECRI Institute has released its third annual 10 C-Suite Watch List. The list was compiled by polling various technical colleagues at ECRI, along with other associates of the company who track hospital and health care operations to figure out which issues were of the most importance to them.

While some entries to the top ten list are repeats from last year, many of the entries are new, as various technologies in certain fields have made great strides over the last year.

1.Electronic Health Records
A big goal for many hospitals is to make sure they are able to certify their electronic health records for Stage 1 Meaningful Use. A concern that has arisen is whether the rush to achieve Stage 1 has affected patient safety.  While few errors involving health information technology have been reported, there have been  instances of patient harm associated with those errors, which included four fatalities. Errors involved data entry into the wrong file, inadequate data transfer between HIT systems, and failure for the systems to function as designed, which has called for hospitals to tighten up these errors in order to keep patients out of harm.

2.mhealth
Mobile applications are widespread across most industries, and healthcare is no exception. Mobile health technologies are mutually beneficial to both physicians and patients, allowing both groups to set reminders, monitor a patient's progress, and stay in communication with the provider.

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