Healthcare leaders are developing policies to address the continued growth of "bring your own device" and "bring your own technology" use.
This article first appeared in the December 2014 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.
Even as data breaches proliferate, healthcare workers are carrying ever more digital devices and tapping into consumer-oriented cloud services, causing no end of challenges for healthcare leadership.
The lure of the latest smartphone or tablet, or wearable devices such as Google Glass, is irresistible to healthcare staff. A major strategy of healthcare leaders is to get out in front of the parade and offer technology and impose policies that accommodate the new devices and technology services, but with appropriate oversight.
Key to implementing this is the ability to manage such a device in the workplace but not interfere with the private personal aspect of the device itself, because it is owned by the individual, says Charles Podesta, CIO at Orange, California–based UC Irvine Health, a 4,800-employee organization with 450 primary and specialty care physicians, and whose medical center has 411 licensed beds.
"They have their own personal apps and their own setup as to what the user interface is and that sort of thing," Podesta says. "You don't want to mess with that, but you also want to make sure that the device is secure when it's on your network and utilizing the various applications that you have within your system."
Scott Mace is the former senior technology editor for HealthLeaders Media. He is now the senior editor, custom content at H3.Group.