How Technology Executives are Managing the Shift to BYOD

Transcription

1 A UBM TECHWEB WHITE PAPER SEPTEMBER 2012 How Technology Executives are Managing the Shift to BYOD An analysis of the benefits and hurdles of enabling employees to use their own consumer devices in the workplace. Brought to you by

2 How Technology Executives are Managing the Shift to BYOD An analysis of the benefits and hurdles of enabling employees to use their own consumer devices in the workplace. 2 The proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is transforming the way people collaborate and access information in many industries. Healthcare is certainly no exception. Workers at hospitals, clinics, private practices and other medical facilities are increasingly relying on these products, and in many cases they are using their own consumer devices in the workplace. The bring your own device (BYOD) trend is having a huge impact on the industry, presenting both benefits and challenges for IT. Among the potential benefits are improved communications and collaboration among healthcare professionals, enhanced staff productivity and improved customer service. The challenges include the need for information security, privacy and access controls; compliance with industry and government regulations; and the difficulty of running certain healthcare applications on smaller screens. This white paper looks at the growing adoption of BYOD in healthcare and the possible benefits and hurdles of enabling employees to use their own consumer devices in the workplace. Healthcare Goes Mobile In a number of ways, healthcare seems like an ideal environment for consumer mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Healthcare professionals, including doctors and nurses, frequently need to be on the go, moving to and from patient hospital rooms, exam rooms, labs and offices, and many of them are partial to certain types of mobile devices. The industry has a history of using mobile products. Forward-thinking hospitals and clinics have been deploying tablet computing devices for years, and in recent months, the move to consumer mobile devices in the healthcare workplace has continued to gain steam. Part of this growth in the use of mobile device stems from the emergence of the BYOD phenomenon. Many people who work in healthcare, like those employed in other industries, own smartphones and tablets. They are comfortable using these devices and like the idea of leveraging them for both personal and work use. More physicians are using mobile devices, according to recent research. An InformationWeek Reports survey of 337 healthcare IT professionals in July 2012, entitled, How Mobility, Apps and BYOD Will Transform Healthcare, shows that 66 percent of doctors are using ipads or other tablet computers for medical purposes in 2012, up from 45 percent in Sixty-nine percent are using smartphones for medical purposes in 2012, up from 61 percent the previous year. According to the survey, doctors are using mobile devices to access patient data (82%), communicate with other healthcare providers (62%), access decision support and other business intelligence applications (47%), and communicate with patients (33%). Nearly 20 percent of the physicians are using mobile devices for all their computing needs, because it s their only computing device. A May 2012 report by research firm Gartner Inc. shows that tablet devices are beginning to

3 3 appear in greater numbers at healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs). The firm says HDOs are moving toward a choice-oriented or BYOD mobile management strategy that is designed to satisfy the needs of clinicians without creating excessive risks for organizations. Except for the emergence of electronic health records (EHRs), mobility is one of the most transformational technologies in the healthcare industry. Gartner Except for the emergence of electronic health records (EHRs), mobility is one of the most transformational technologies in the healthcare industry, the Gartner report says. The BYOD trend in healthcare is likely to continue growing as more people purchase consumer devices and bring them to work, and as healthcare organizations discover that there can be advantages to the trend. The Benefits of BYOD In fact, the use of mobile consumer devices can provide a number of significant benefits to healthcare institutions as well as patients. For one thing, doctors, nurses, technicians and others can use the devices to more easily access clinical applications or data, including information about patients, medical conditions, drugs and other treatments, insurance or other areas. They can do this from virtually any location within a facility or outside, as long as they have Internet access. With the rapid emergence of EHRs as a major part of the process of treating patients and maintaining records, having remote access to patient information is becoming increasingly important for healthcare professionals. Healthcare providers can use tablets and smartphones to view information such as test results, order medications for patients, remotely monitor patients, prescribe medications, dictate notes and access reference data that they need as part of patient care. In addition, the use of these mobile devices can result in better collaboration and communication among healthcare professionals. The ability to access and share information online allows doctors to work together on a case even if they are located in different cities. They can share visual or graphical information about patients and conditions with other specialists, and exchange opinions and ideas about treatment options. Greater and easier access to information and a higher degree of collaboration can lead to another benefit: the increased productivity of medical professionals. Because they have become so familiar with the devices from using them at home, workers might be more inclined to use the products to perform tasks quickly and effectively at work. Ultimately, all of this could potentially lead to improved patient care, which is the primary goal of healthcare institutions. Furthermore, there are many healthcare applications designed to run on these devices, which can potentially benefit patients and the healthcare system. The InformationWeek Reports study indicates that between 20,000 and 30,000 mobile health applications are available to consumers today. The vast majority of these are aimed at people who want to track their fitness or wellness activities or look up healthcare information on their smartphones, ipads or Android tablets, the report says. For example, applications are available that can record how far a user walks or runs, how many calories a user burns, and that can monitor weight and blood pressure. Challenges to Overcome To ensure that they are realizing optimal success with mobile devices, healthcare organizations need to overcome a number of challenges and address certain issues related to mobile device management. One of the biggest challenges institutions face is providing adequate security, both for the devices themselves and for the corporate networks and data that many of these products are accessing. According to the InformationWeek Reports study, securing mobile devices is among the more significant security-related challenges healthcare organizations face today. Because mobile devices provide anytime, anywhere access to sensitive data, they blur traditional security perimeters, including buildings in the physical sense, and firewalls and networks in the logical sense. Mobile devices increase the risk of data loss and theft, unauthorized access, and the use of unsecured wireless services. BYOD products are less manageable than corporate-issued devices, and healthcare organizations struggle with tasks such as conducting inventory, applying policy, verifying safeguards, applying patches, auditing, remediation and secure data wipes.

4 4 Unmanaged devices compound the risk, as healthcare workers also use them for personal applications, access to social media, , and Web browsing activities that bring a higher risk of malware infections and accidental security incidents, such as ing sensitive data over an unsecured personal service. Between 20,000 and 30,000 mobile health applications are available to consumers today. InformationWeek Reports While mobile applications for healthcare that are developed by software suppliers with well-established security carry a relatively low risk of exposing vulnerabilities, personal apps such as games are often created with little attention to privacy and security. When these personal apps run on consumer mobile devices that healthcare workers use to access healthcare services and sensitive data, the confidentiality, integrity and availability of healthcare data is put at risk. Given the sensitivity of such information as patient records, organizations have to be especially diligent about safeguarding data on devices and ensuring that only authorized users can gain access to enterprise networks and specific applications that might contain sensitive data. To ensure that information is protected, many healthcare organizations rely on technologies such as data encryption, network access controls and the ability to remotely wipe lost or stolen devices. They are also creating and enforcing policies that dictate the proper use of consumer devices in the work environment, including making sure that information security is paramount. Another reason why security is so important and yet another challenge for the industry is that healthcare organizations and their partners must comply with regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which require stringent security. Healthcare organizations also must deal with difficulties related to mobile application development and deployment, as well as supporting the application environment with its range of devices, operating systems and applications. In addition, organizations face issues with their server and data center infrastructure, such as addressing any weaknesses in their existing enterprise and possibly having to invest in new storage and networking equipment to support greater mobility. Technology such as client virtualization/ Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) allows organizations to run virtual desktops from shared hardware in the data center. Devices then require fewer resources for management, configuration and support. But organizations need to be aware of the incremental server, storage and networking requirements for supporting the growing mobile environment. Finally, there is the difficulty of using certain healthcare and other applications on mobile devices, which feature smaller screens than desktop computers. For example, many healthcare applications are optimized for 21-inch screens, so an ipad or smartphone might not be a suitable device for accessing these types of programs. Solutions for Optimizing BYOD To better manage their BYOD environments and address challenges such as security and compliance, healthcare organizations can deploy technology offerings such as client virtualization, virtual desktop strategies and solutions that address multivendor device management. For example, Kettering Health Network (KHN) in Dayton, Ohio, which has more than 10,000 employees, is using virtualization technology from HP and VMware for a variety of end-user devices, including tablets. KHN, spurred by internal quality initiatives, selected Epic as its electronic medical records partner in 2009, and has been going live at various hospital sites in recent years. KHN also elected to deploy Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) from VMware, running on HP s Client Virtualization for Healthcare Reference Architecture. KHN also implemented VMware View, a virtualization platform that enables desktop administrators to virtualize the operating system, applications, and data, and deliver desktops to end users. It provides centralized automated management of these components. Virtualization enables KHN to run virtual desktops from shared hardware located in its data center. With the technology, user devices require fewer support resources to manage, configure and support. They can enable more rapid response to updates, configuration issues and desktop threats such as viruses. In addition, devices require significantly less bandwidth and can provide a superior user experience for clients.

5 Clinical providers at KHN can access Epic from any device from any location in a secure manner that meets compliance requirements. As a result of using the HP and VMware solutions, Kettering has seen benefits such as improved patient care, enhanced security and compliance, improved quality of service delivery, and time and cost savings. Realistically, there s no stopping the BYOD trend in many sectors, including healthcare, since many people are attached to their mobile devices of choice and want to be able to use these products at work. While there are clearly challenges that IT needs to overcome, that should not stop technology executives from embracing the BYOD trend. With the right strategies for addressing issues such as security, compliance and virtualization, organizations can enjoy the benefits these devices bring to their operations and ultimately provide better care. An effective strategy for maximizing the benefits of BYOD in a healthcare environment includes creating a policy that outlines the acceptable use of devices, and deploying technology such as virtualization and mobile device management to improve the control and security of these prolific devices. Healthcare organizations need to carefully consider factors such as which device types they are willing to support; which applications they need to develop and support; which users should be granted access to the corporate network and specific applications and data via mobile devices; what kind of security technologies and policies are needed for BYOD; and what investments must be made to support a growing mobile environment. 5 ABOUT HP AND INTEL HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at HP and Hewlett-Packard are registered trademarks of Hewlett-Packard Company. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at and blogs.intel.com UBM TechWeb, a division of UBM LLC. All Rights Reserved.