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Management Information Systems

Notes task, which involves several inefficacies including incompatible technologies, operating systems,
protocols, etc.
The mobile capabilities of mobile SCM extension provide a convenient, time saving, and highly
accurate means of capturing data on movements of goods and other events. They simplify
checking and monitoring tasks and provide up-to-date information on process status, enabling
the users to react swiftly to unforeseen events.
Healthcare is the largest service industry in the world and none of us throughout the course of
our life can avoid some interaction with this industry. While no country spends more per capita
on healthcare delivery than the US, most of the 29 countries of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) have doubled their healthcare expenditure over the last
20 years1. Thus, cost effective, efficient high quality healthcare delivery is a critical challenge for
healthcare at a global level.
Healthcare systems in each nation have to date been shaped by their country’s traditions, culture,
payment mechanisms and patient expectations. Now however, it is not these differences but
rather the commonalties of a global and apparent terminal malady of exponentially increasing
costs, an informed and empowered consumer, the need for e-health adaptability and a shift from
focusing on primarily curing to the prevention of diseases that are the major challenges of
healthcare management in the 21st century. Most are agreed that the key lies in the adoption and
use of information systems/information technology (IS/IT) in healthcare management; however,
views vary tremendously when it comes to how this should actually be brought about. In short
then, the healthcare industry is finding itself in a state of turbulence and flux. The key is likely
to lie in the adoption of a mobile/wireless solution.

Figure 9.10: Accelerated Healthcare Delivery

Over a period of two years INET International Inc. has been conducting research that has been
directed at how to apply mobile Internet wireless technologies’ low cost advantages to evolve
a wireless healthcare portal. A portal is a single point of contact for healthcare providers and
handheld technology applications (HTA) to access and process various data pertaining to patients
such as: (1)Patient specific-data (i.e. Patient ID, radiology reports, Lab results, Clinical findings,
and research data.), (2) Medical Knowledge (primarily from evidence based medicine training
and journals), (3) Clinical guidelines (i.e. association guidelines such as the Association of
Radiologists clinical practice publications.) and (4) Reimbursement rules and data (i.e. Ontario
Health Insurance Plan, known as OHIP.) The research has shown that mobile/wireless solutions
for healthcare can achieve four critical goals of (1) Improve patient care (2) Reduce Transaction
Costs, (3) Increase healthcare quality and (4) Enhance teaching and research.

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