WiFi Use Grows Strongly in Health Care Industry: Report - Health Care IT from eWeek

Lets use technology to reduce care costs and improve both productivity and client service - S.Holle

WiFi Use Grows Strongly in Health Care Industry: Report - Health Care IT from eWeek

According to the research firm, health care users are usually the first adopters of new WiFi technology, and the recession of 2009-2010 didn't halt the growth of wireless activity. In addition to the home, patients in hospitals can now use WiFi to keep in touch with family and friends while recovering.

"The health care industry has come to rely on WiFi because it's versatile, proven technology that meets health care's unique needs — data-intensive work in highly mobile environments," Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director for the Wi-Fi Alliance, told eWEEK. "It has advanced security mechanisms, high-performance technology, a robust certification ecosystem and an enormous range of certified devices."
ABI's Wireless Health Care Research Service tracks other wireless technology in the health care industry such as Bluetooth, Low-Energy Bluetooth, ZigBee, 802.15.4 and proprietary low power RF offerings to see how it's used in areas such as WLAN, personal monitoring, disease management, assisted living and telepresence.

"Wi-Fi can certainly support this kind of application, but there are some lower-power technologies that it will have to compete with such as Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee and proprietary offerings," Collins told eWEEK. "Any offering in this market will have to be extremely simple to install, and operate and existing Wi-Fi connections can’t be relied upon to always be present.

With doctors now able to monitor patients' vital data from afar using wireless technology such as WiFi, ABI reported in July 2009 that remote patient monitoring is poised for major growth. At the time, the firm expected WiFi-enabled health care products worldwide (with the exception of WiFi-equipped medical equipment) to total $4.9 billion in 2014.